This article is from page 16 of the 2012-12-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
A TEENAGE actress with very strong North Clare connections has had her big international television break playing the role of an abducted girl in a drama reminiscent of the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
Fourteen-year-old Lauryn Canny, whose mother Nicola comes from Corofin, has been wowing audiences all over Europe with her performance in the four-part mini-series Amber.
The series, which has been commissioned by RTÉ but has yet to be broadcast, has been shown in a number of countries across Europe and as far afield as Australia. The drama tells the story of Dublin teenager Amber Bailey and the attempts made by her family and friends to find her.
Lauryn is currently in Morocco where she is shooting her first feature film alongside Juliette Binoche.
“That was her breakthrough role. It was commissioned by RTÉ but they haven’t shown it yet. She always wanted to be an actress. She never went to stage schools or anything like that but just because of her personality people always said that she was going to end up on the stage,” said Lauryn’s mother, Nicola.
“She absolutely loves it. She’s trying to find the balance between doing this and keeping up with school work as well. But her dream is to be a professional actor and do this for a living. She flew off to Morocco on Friday to be in a film with Juliet Binoche entitled 1,000 Times a Night . Lauryn is actually playing one of the lead roles – she is playing Juliet Binoche’s daughter. U2 drummer Larry Mullen is also in the film.”
Along with their Corofin connections, the Cannys also have a number of relations in the Shannon area.
“We come to Clare a good bit. We celebrated Lauryn getting the role down with my nan in Corofin, Lauryn’s great-grandmother. We found out that she got the role on Friday night and we all headed off to Clare for a big family night on the Saturday,” continued Nicola.