Anna McGahan

Anna McGahan
McGahan in 2012
Born	(1988-05-02) 2 May 1988 Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Alma mater	QUT and AFTRS
Occupations	Actress playwright
Years active	2009–present
Notable work	Underbelly: Razor (2011)[1] ANZAC Girls (2014) House Husbands (2012–2014)[2] The Doctor Blake Mysteries (2015–2018)[3]
Spouse	Jonathan Weir ​ ​ (m. 2017; div. 2021)​
Children	2

Anna McGahan (born 2 May 1988) is an Australian actress and playwright. She is best known for playing the roles of Nellie Cameron on the television series, Underbelly: Razor (2011),^[1] Lucy in House Husbands (2012–2014),^[2] and Rose Anderson in The Doctor Blake Mysteries (2015–2018).^[3]

McGahan grew up in Coorparoo, Queensland,^[4] Growing up she was a dedicated ballet dancer, training for 15 years, but also had aspirations to be a writer.^[5] Attending Brisbane Girls Grammar School, she received the highest graduating result possible - an OP1, before beginning a psychology degree. After joining an amateur theatre group at university, she abandoned her course of study, deciding instead to undertake a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) at QUT,^[4][5] which she graduated from in 2010. She subsequently relocated to Sydney. She studied screenwriting at AFTRS in 2015.^[6]

McGahan has appeared in Australian film, television and theatre. Her most notable appearance to date is starring as Nellie Cameron in the hit Australian TV series Underbelly: Razor, in which she plays a 16-year-old 1920s prostitute from a wealthy background who influenced some of the era's most powerful men,^[1] for which she won the Inside Film 'Out of the Box' Award, was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Drama Award^[7] and was nominated for two Logies.^[8]

In 2012 she received a 'Best Emerging Artist' Matilda Award for her performance in La Boite Theatre Company’s Julius Caesar.^[9]

McGahan appeared in the 2012 film 100 Bloody Acres^[10] and Australian TV series House Husbands on the Nine Network in the same year.^[11]

On 27 June 2012, McGahan was awarded the Heath Ledger scholarship at the Australians in Film benefit in Los Angeles.^[12]

In 2014 she played Sister Olive Haynes in ANZAC Girls, a six-part miniseries for ABC Television that was based closely on real characters from the Australian and New Zealand nurses and troops who served in World War I.^[13] McGahan plays opposite Brandon McClelland, as the Australian soldier Norval 'Pat' Dooley, who married Haynes in 1917.^[14]

In May 2021, McGahan played Katharina in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew with Queensland Theatre (in the Bille Brown Theatre, Brisbane), directed by Damien Ryan.^[15] Petruchio was played by Nicholas Brown.^[16]

In 2023, McGahan was named as part of the cast for ABC musical drama In Our Blood.^[17]

McGahan is also a playwright and published author. She won the Queensland Theatre Company Young Playwright's Award in 2009 and 2010, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award in 2011 for her play He's Seeing Other People Now,^[18] which she produced through the Metro Arts Independents Season in Brisbane.^[19] Together with Joel McKerrow, she co-wrote the theatre piece The People of the Sun, which toured Melbourne and Sydney in 2016 and 2017.^[18]

In 2016 she was shortlisted for The Saturday Paper's national essay award, the Horne Prize for her piece Brightness.^[20] In 2023, she won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.^[21] for her debut novel Immaculate, which was also shortlisted for the 2024 MUD Prize and 2024 Queensland Literary Awards 'Book of the Year'. She is adapting the novel for the screen with funding from Screen Queensland.^[22] Her novel Metanoia, was shortlisted for the international ECPA Award for Best Memoir/Biography.^[22] She has also been published by Griffith Review, The Guardian and Mamamia.^[22]

In 2012 McGahan converted to Christianity while reading a Gideon's Bible in a hotel room, where she had a "series of spiritual encounters".^[23] In 2019 her memoir of her spiritual journey was published by Acorn Press, and was nominated for the global ECPA Christian Book Awards.^[24] She is no longer heavily involved in the church as an institution, and in 2021 stated that she creates work that ‘prioritises a defiant female gaze to explore experiences of embodiment, motherhood, sexuality and spirituality’.^[25]

McGahan married Jonathan Weir in April 2017.^[26] They welcomed their first child, Mercy Weir, in February 2018, born prematurely at 33 weeks.^[27] They separated in 2021, and she now lives in Brisbane with her two daughters.^[25]

• McGahan, Anna (19 August 2019). Metanoia: A Memoir of a Body, Born Again. Bible Society Australia. ISBN 978-0647519837.
• McGahan, Anna (2020). Skin: A Book of Blessings for the Woman Learning to Bear Life. Anna McGahan. ISBN 978-0646830582.
• McGahan, Anna (20 June 2023). Immaculate. Allen and Unwin. ISBN 978-1761067990.

^[28][29]

^[30]

• QUT Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia.
• The Courier Mail - an Australian newspaper
• SMH The Sydney Morning Herald
• The Courier Mail - an Australian newspaper
• The Gatehouse - Studio B
• Marquee

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anna McGahan.

• Anna McGahan at IMDb