Anna McGahan

Early life McGahan grew up in Coorparoo, Queensland, Growing up she was a dedicated ballet dancer, training for 15 years, but also had aspirations to be a writer. 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,

Career 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, for which she won the Inside Film 'Out of the Box' Award, was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Drama Award and was nominated for two Logies.

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

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

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

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. McGahan plays opposite Brandon McClelland, as the Australian soldier Norval 'Pat' Dooley, who married Haynes in 1917.

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. Petruchio was played by Nicholas Brown.

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

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, which she produced through the Metro Arts Independents Season in Brisbane. Together with Joel McKerrow, she co-wrote the theatre piece The People of the Sun, which toured Melbourne and Sydney in 2016 and 2017. In 2023, she won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award. 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. Her novel Metanoia, was shortlisted for the international ECPA Award for Best Memoir/Biography. In 2019 her memoir of her spiritual journey was published by Acorn Press, and was nominated for the global ECPA Christian Book Awards. 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’.

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

Awards and nominations Year Title Award Category Result 2009 Queensland Theatre Company Young Playwright's Award 2010 2011 He's Seeing Other People Now Queensland Premier’s Drama Award Inside Film Awards Out of the Box Award 2012 Underbelly: RazorTV Week Logie Awards Most Popular New Female Talent Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent Various Australians in Film Heath Ledger Scholarship La Boite’s Julius Caesar Matilda Awards Best Emerging Artist 2016 Brightness The Saturday Paper's Horne Prize National Essay Award 2020 Metanoia : Memoir of a Body, Born Again Australian Christian Book of the Year Awards Australian Christian Book of the Year 2023Immaculate The Australian Vogel National Literary Award 2024 Adelaide Writers' Week MUD Literary Prize