Acting roles

Nicola trained as a professional model and was part of the Miriam Woodbyrne Agency in Dublin in the 1970s and continued to model part-time for the next 40 years! For three years she was featured as the opening and closing sequences of the RTE1 TV fashion series Off the Rails and, on many occasions she modelled on The Afternoon Show with TV presenters Marty Whelan and Mary Kennedy.

She has appeared in many advertising campaigns including long-running TV and cinema adverts for AIB, Discover Ireland, Dunnes Stores, Dennys, Actimel, Fine Gael and An Post.

She trained in Ballet, Singing, Riding and Music. She studied flute with Andre Prieur and with Doris Keogh at The Royal Irish Academy of Music. She also speaks French and Italian and is a full member of Irish Actors’ Equity.

She acted the part of an Eternal in John Boormans’ cult movie Zardoz, in the BBC drama Mountbatten as Lady Brabourne and as a solicitor in another of John Boorman’s films The General.

In the past Nicola played such diverse roles as Cecily in The Importance of Being Ernest, Margaret Roper in A Man for All Seasons and a young Queen Victoria in The Hollow Crown.

Other roles have included:

Her own one-woman show at a number of venues and also her satirical monologue called Parliamo Italiano, which is an amusing take on one-upmanship.

Nicola wrote and produced an adult pantomime called Christmas Fairy Tells All, which ran at The New Theatre in Dublin’s Temple Bar.

She also wrote and performed several roles in a Revue called Electric Gas, which ran for two weeks in the Dry Rain Theatre in Bray, Co. Wicklow.

She joined the cast of the long-running RTE TV series Fair City where she acted the part of Grace Cleary in six episodes.

In the film Harvest Thanksgiving, directed by Brian Dick, she played the leading role of Sofie - a woman struggling with incipient Alzheimer’s.

Other films and TV dramas in which she has played parts include:

ITV’s Frankenstein Chronicles - Director: Benjamin Ross

Grangsters - Director: Brian Folan

Touched - Director: Christian Kotey

Fumbling towards Ecstasy - Directors: Victoria McCollum and Gemma Faith

Eva La Napoli - Director: Cleo McCann

In the stage production of The Quane’s Laundry as Queen Victoria and Lady Cadogan. Director: Luke Hayden

In the play The Clean House as Ana, a Brazilian who falls in love with her surgeon. Director: Aoife Connolly

As a trumpet player in a music video Show me the Science for the rock group Bressie and the Blizzards

And on RTE2 TV’s award-winning Zombie Bashers, as a woman stuck with a raging zombie in her back garden.