Emily Barclay

Emily Barclay (born 24 October 1984) is a British-born New Zealander actress, whose work has been recognized by the British Independent Film Awards and the Australian Film Institute Awards.

Career Emily Barclay was born in Plymouth to a General practitioner and a landscape designer, and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, where she went to an all-girls school and attended Saturday morning drama classes. At the age of nine, Barclay played Hamlet in a school production and decided to become an actress.

Diana Rowan (the same casting agent who discovered Anna Paquin and Keisha Castle-Hughes) discovered Barclay in a school play and cast her as Celia in 2004's In My Father's Den, that raised the actress to prominence. For that film, Barclay won Most Promising Newcomer at the 2005 British Independent Film Awards. She followed by moving to Australia – while continuing part-time with her degree in English and gender studies at the University of Auckland – for a role in the critically acclaimed 2006 crime drama Suburban Mayhem directed by Paul Goldman, for which she collected an AFI Award for Best Actress.

Barclay's performance also lead to an invitation to her first stage performance, on Neil Armfield's 2009 production of Gethsemane in Sydney. Armfield later indicated Barclay to Lee Lewis, who cast her in the play That Face. In 2011, she performed in another Belvoir production, The Seagull, and acted opposite Geoffrey Rush in the Melbourne Theatre Company's The Importance of Being Earnest. In 2012, Barclay performed opposite Hollywood actors Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin in This Is Our Youth, returned to Belvoir with Strange Interlude and debuted at London's Young Vic performing on Three Sisters.

Barclay is currently represented by United Agents.

Barclay also starred in the music video "Big Jet Plane" by Angus & Julia Stone which was directed by Kiku Ohe in 2010.

She has cited her favourite actor as being Ewen Leslie.

On 23 June 2026, Barclay was named in the cast for ABC series The Great White.

Animal rights Barclay is a vegan and has had an active involvement in animal rights, working with the organisation Save Animals From Exploitation (SAFE) in anti-cruelty campaigns, including an appearance in the 2007 SAFE charity calendar.

Filmography

Film

Television

Stage