ENNIS’ SIMONE KIRBY will be reprising her role as Mary Malone in the third series of he HBO/BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.
Simone made her debut as Mary in season two which aired last year and is back for the final run of episodes which began on HBO in the US earlier this month (December 5th) and commence on the BBC this Sunday (December 18th). Cast members include James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Her character, Mary is a former nun who becomes an astrophysicist and neuropsychologist investigating how dark matter affects human consciousness. It is in this capacity she meets the main character Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), a dimension-hopping orphan whose fate is bound up with that of the Magisterium.
Ironically, Kirby was already familiar with Pullman’s novels. During her twenties, she first came across them, at a time when she was contemplating the meaning of life. The books look at religion, atheism and spirituality but is set in a multi-world fantasy inspired by CS Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
After first completing a degree in art, Simone went through the studios of the Gaiety School of Acting. She then grabbed attention as Geraldine in ‘Pure Mule’ in 2005 with other credits including playing Oonagh in the Ken Loach film ‘Jimmy’s Hall’ and more recently ‘Hidden Assets’ which was a ratings success for RTÉ.
Although she was unaware about the first series of ‘His Dark Materials’, Simone’s name was in the mix when show-runners were casting Mary for series two and decided she should be Irish.
