Monica Dolan (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Pride, Wolf Hall, Black Mirror) is quietly having a banner year. At the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the English character actress is pulling triple duty, appearing in no fewer than three films.
In the real-life The Lost Children of Tuam, produced by Liam Neeson and directed by Frank Berry, Dolan stars as history enthusiast Catherine Corless, who researched the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland, only to uncover that as many as 796 children had been buried in unmarked graves on the property. The movie world-premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, where it won the best Irish film award, and will screen in the Centerpiece Program at Toronto, beginning on Sunday, Sept. 13.
Also at Toronto, you can see Dolan in the world premiere of John Madden’s Onwards and Sideways, starring Laura Linney and Rhys Ifans as two people with a lot in common – a great sense of humor, a love of dance, and, as just diagnosed, Parkinson’s. Dolan plays the sister of Ifans’ character.
And then there is Simon Stone’s Elsinore, which is already attracting awards season buzz after its Venice world premiere before it heads to Toronto. Starring Andrew Scott as British actor Ian Charleson, who throws himself into playing Hamlet while succumbing to AIDS, the film’s ensemble cast features Dolan as the sarcastic receptionist at the National Theatre in London.
