Lara McDonnell

Lara McDonnell is an Irish actress who got her start on the West End stage and has since worked in film and television. She grew up in the Luttrellstown area of Castleknock, west of Dublin, took after school drama classes, and landed her first screen part in 2014, playing an adolescent Rosie in Love, Rosie. She then shared the title role in the West End musical Matilda the Musical from 2015 to 2016. Her films include To Walk Invisible (2016), The Delinquent Season (2018), as Alannah, Artemis Fowl (2020), as Captain Holly Short, and Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (2021), as Moira. Her television work includes the Channel 5 drama The Holiday and the Netflix series The Last Bus. She played a teenage Rachel in Greatest Days (2023) and has taken the role of Young Joan in The Hills of California since January 2024. She was named in 2021 by the Irish Independent among actors tipped for stardom.