Jenn Murray, recently seen in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, will be honored at the 15th annual Oscar Wilde Awards, it was announced Thursday.
The event, set for Feb. 6 in its traditional Thursday night slot before the Oscars, celebrates the work of those from Ireland — and some who are not — who contribute to film, television and music. J.J. Abrams will return to host at his Bad Robot offices in Santa Monica.
A native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, the stage-trained Murray made an auspicious film debut as the title character, a disturbed girl with a multiple personality disorder, in Dorothy Mills (2008).
She also has appeared in Earthbound (2012), Testament of Youth (2014), Saoirse Ronan's Brooklyn (2015) and as the hysterical Lady Lucy Manwaring in the Jane Austen adaptation Love & Friendship (2016).
Murray played Chastity Barebone in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) and was Gerda, a deadly ally of Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), in the recent release Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.
She also starred for the BBC in the miniseries The Day of the Triffids and The Fades and in the series Truckers.
Murray will receive a "Wilde Card" award, given to "young, rising talent and/or people whose names you may not know yet, but we believe you will," Trina Vargo, founder and president of event organizer the US-Ireland Alliance, said in a statement. Previous recipients include Ronan, Sarah Bolger and Barry Keoghan.
"The US-Ireland Alliance champions talent and courage in equal measure, honoring who you are, where you are from and where you are going," Murray said. "I am privileged and excited to follow in the footsteps of previous honorees who are doing inspiring, versatile work."
The US-Ireland Alliance, also is known for its George J. Mitchell Scholarship program, a nationwide competition that selects future American leaders to pursue graduate study in Ireland.
Other Oscar Wilde honorees will be announced in the coming weeks. Among those saluted in previous years were Jim Sheridan, Colin Farrell, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara, Paula Malcomson, Hylda Queally, Chris O'Dowd, Seamus McGarvey, Glenn Close, Ruth Negga, Martin Short, Brendan Gleeson, Stephen Colbert, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, James Corden, Colm Meaney, Van Morrison, Terry George, Michelle Williams, Neil Jordan and late THR writer-editor Steve Brennan.
Source: https://celebrityinsider.org