Actor Tara Fitzgerald: 'Would I like to have a go at a traditionally male Shakespeare role? Yeah'

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Tara Fitzgerald in Duet for One at the Orange Tree Theatre. Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

Actor Tara Fitzgerald was only 27 when she made her breakthrough, starring as Ophelia alongside Ralph Fiennes’ Hamlet in Jonathan Kent’s 1995 Almeida Theatre production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The show transferred from London to Broadway, where Fiennes won the Tony award for best actor and Fitzgerald the Drama Desk award for outstanding featured actress in a play.

In 2021, Fitzgerald returned to Hamlet in Greg Hersov’s production at London’s Young Vic – not as Ophelia, but as Gertrude. Her Hamlet the second time around was a woman, Cush Jumbo.

“It is so interesting how years of experience give you a different perspective on a play,” she says. “A woman playing Hamlet would not even have occurred to me back then. Would I like to have a go at a traditionally male Shakespeare role? Yeah, I think so. I would not do it just for the hell of it, but if I felt I really had something original to offer in the part, then yeah, I would.”

Born in 1967, Fitzgerald grew up in a theatrical family. Her great aunt was the Oscar and Tony-nominated Irish actor Geraldine Fitzgerald, and her stepfather was the actor Norman Rodway. She spent her early childhood in the Bahamas, before returning to England, training at Drama Centre London, and embarking on a 30-year career in which she has traversed stage and screen, and has included roles from Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire to Selyse Baratheon in Game of Thrones.

“Theatre was completely in my DNA,” she says. “When I said I wanted to be an actor, everyone thought that was a totally normal thing to do. My stepfather was an associate at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and we would go see shows in London and Stratford that just blew me away. I remember a Restoration comedy called Wild Oats, and I remember seeing Judi Dench in Juno and the Paycock. I found the illusion of theatre so magical, and I just wanted to be part of it. I still do.”

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What production made you fall in love with theatre?

My family went to see a pantomime called Give a Dog a Bone when I was about five. My aunt was the stage manager and we were in a box. My sister ran out of the box and on to the stage, while the show was on. The audience loved it. It was a great moment.

What are you finding inspiring at the moment?

I’m about to play a violinist in Tom Kempinski’s Duet for One at the Orange Tree Theatre, so I have been listening to a lot of classical music. It seems as though it was based on the life of Jacqueline du Pré, so I have been very inspired by her work.

What role do you really want to play?

There isn’t one, really. I have realised that the goals you set yourself are never quite what you imagine them to be. They are often a bit of a disappointment, actually. It is the other stuff, the stuff that you never expected to do, that you often enjoy the most.

What do you wish you could change about the performing arts industry?

I wish it was easier for young people to go to drama school. It is too expensive and there are so few opportunities when they graduate. It is becoming less and less viable as a career choice, and I worry about the future of theatre as a result.

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