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Actor

1980-02-28 · Ennis, County Clare, Ireland · Female

16 series in the catalog

Denise Gough ( GOF; born 28 February 1980) is an Irish actress. On television, she is best known for her roles in the BBC Two crime drama Paula (2017), the ITV miniseries Too Close (2021), and the Disney+ series Andor (2022–2025). Her films include Colette (2018), The Other Lamb (2019), Monday (2020), and Martyrs Lane (2021). She has received a number of accolades, including two Laurence Olivier Awards as well as nominations for a Tony Award and a British Academy Television Award.

Early years and education

Gough was born on 28 February 1980. Born in Wexford and raised in Ennis, County Clare, Gough is the seventh of eleven siblings; her father was variously an electrician and a fisheries head, while her mother was a marriage counsellor. One of her younger sisters is the actress Kelly Gough. Gough was raised as a Catholic.

She trained as a soprano before leaving Ireland for London at 15, with a boyfriend, after which she became homeless for a while. She started using alcohol and drugs to block out the experience of being groomed from the age of 13 and raped twice at 14 by "a man in his 20s"; "At the time [Gough] thought it was love", but she later realised that she had been the victim of child abuse.

She was awarded a grant to study at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA) in Wandsworth aged 18, and graduated from ALRA in 2003.

Career

In 2012, she was nominated for the Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her performances in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms at the Lyric Hammersmith and Nancy Harris's Our New Girl at the Bush Theatre. In January 2014 she was Julia in The Duchess of Malfi, the inaugural production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. At the National Theatre, London, in September 2015 she presented an "electrifying" performance as a recovering substance user in Duncan Macmillan's People, Places and Things, directed by Jeremy Herrin.

She reprised the role when the production transferred to the Wyndham's Theatre in March 2016, and subsequently won the Olivier Award for Best Actress. She returned to the National Theatre in April 2017 playing the role of Harper in Marianne Elliot's revival of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America, for which she won the 2018 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Gough then returned to People, Places & Things for its New York transfer. In February 2018, Gough returned to the role of Harper in the Broadway transfer of the National Theatre's production of Angels in America, alongside the majority of the London cast.

Gough was cast in the Star Wars TV series Andor as Dedra Meero, an ambitious and strategic supervisor for the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB).