Oona Castilla Chaplin (; born 4 June 1986) is a Spanish-Swiss actress. Her roles include

Talisa Maegyr The characters from the medieval fantasy Television show, television series ''Game of Thrones'' are based on their respective counterparts from author George R. R. Martin's ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series of novels. Set in a fictional univer ...

in the HBO TV series ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of '' A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the fir ...

'', Kitty Trevelyan in the BBC drama '' The Crimson Field'', and Zilpha Geary in the series ''

Taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

''. A member of the

Chaplin family The Chaplin family is a multinational acting family. They are the descendants of Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill, mother of Sydney John Chaplin (born Sydney John Hill), Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin Jr., and George Wheeler Dryden. Member ...

, she is the daughter of actress

Geraldine Chaplin Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American actress. She is the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of eight children with his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill. After beginnings in dance and modeling, she turned her attention to act ...

, granddaughter of English filmmaker and actor

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...

, and great-granddaughter of Irish-American playwright

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earli ...

. She was named after her maternal grandmother Oona O'Neill, Charlie Chaplin’s fourth and final wife.

Early life

Chaplin was born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

to English-American actress

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

an cinematographer Patricio Castilla. Her paternal grandmother is

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

. She has a half-brother named Shane from her mother's previous relationship with film director

Carlos Saura Carlos Saura Atarés (born 4 January 1932) is a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. Along with Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be one of Spain’s most renowned filmmakers. He has a long and prolific career t ...

. Chaplin spent her childhood mostly in Spain, the United Kingdom,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

and

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

, but travelled often because of her mother's film career. She started dancing ballet,

salsa Salsa most often refers to: * Salsa (Mexican cuisine), a variety of sauces used as condiments * Salsa music, a popular style of Latin American music * Salsa (dance), a Latin dance associated with Salsa music Salsa or SALSA may also refer to: A ...

and

flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura a ...

at an early age. When Chaplin was 15, she began studying at Gordonstoun School in Scotland on a drama scholarship. She appeared in several school plays; toured the United Kingdom in an adaptation of ''

Romeo and Juliet ''Romeo and Juliet'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with ''Ham ...

; and'' impersonated her grandfather in the role of Bottom in an adaptation of ''

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict a ...

'' at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

. After leaving Gordonstoun, she was accepted into the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...

in London, where she graduated in 2007.

Career

Since graduating from RADA, Chaplin has acted in mainly British and Spanish short and feature films. She has played alongside her mother in the feature films '' Inconceivable'', ''

¿Para qué sirve un oso? ''¿Para qué sirve un oso?'' ( en, What's a Bear For?) is a 2011 Spanish eco- comedy film written and directed by Tom Fernández. The film stars Javier Cámara, Gonzalo de Castro and Emma Suárez. It also stars Geraldine Chaplin and her real-life ...

'', ''

Imago Mortis ''Imago Mortis'' is a 2009 Italian-Spanish film directed by Stefano Bessoni. The supernatural thriller stars Geraldine Chaplin and is the first major screen appearance of her daughter, Oona. Richard Stanley, one of the film's scriptwriters descr ...

'' and ''

Anchor and Hope ''Anchor and Hope'' ( es, Tierra firme, links=no) is a 2017 Spanish-British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Carlos Marques-Marcet. The screenplay, written by Marques-Marcet and Jules Nurrish, was inspired by ''Maternidades subversivas'' ...

''. She has also had supporting roles in British and American television. She appeared as a Brazilian cage dancer in ITV's '' Married Single Other'' (2010); as Marnie Madden, the wife of main character Hector Madden, in the BBC period drama '' The Hour'' (2011–2012); as John Watson's girlfriend in an episode of BBC's '' Sherlock'' (2012); and as

in HBO's ''

'' (2012–2013). She plays Kitty Trevelyan, a lead character, in the BBC drama '' The Crimson Field'' (2014), and Ira Levinson's wife Ruth Levinson in '' The Longest Ride'' (2015). She stars as Zilpha Geary in the eight-part

historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other t ...

series ''

'' (2017) on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

and FX. Chaplin joined the cast of

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post- New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability ...

's ''

Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...

'' sequels in June 2017. Her character, Varang, is described as "a strong and vibrant central character who spans the entire saga of the sequels".

Ancestry

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*
Oona Chaplin
at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts {{DEFAULTSORT:Chaplin, Oona Castilla 1986 births Living people Actresses from Madrid Spanish people of English descent Spanish people of Chilean descent Spanish people of American descent Spanish people of Irish descent Spanish people of Mapuche descent Spanish people of Romanian descent Spanish television actresses Spanish film actresses Oona 21st-century Spanish actresses People educated at Gordonstoun Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Ballet dancers Salsa dancers Flamenco dancers