Sharon Horgan

Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is an Irish actress, writer, director, producer, and comedian. She is best known for creating and starring in the comedy series Pulling (2006–2009), Catastrophe (2015–2019), and Bad Sisters (2022–2024). She also created the comedy series Divorce (2016–2019), Motherland (2016–2022), and Shining Vale (2022–2023).

Horgan has appeared in films, such as Valiant (2005), Imagine Me & You (2005), Death of a Superhero (2011), Man Up (2015), Game Night (2018), Military Wives (2019), Dating Amber (2020), Together (2021), Everybody's Talking About Jamie (2021), and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022).

Horgan won the 2008 British Comedy Award for Best TV Actress for Pulling, while the show's 2009 hour-long final episode won the British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Drama. A seven-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 2016 BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Writer for Catastrophe (with Rob Delaney). Catastrophe was also nominated for Scripted Comedy in the 2020 BAFTA TV Awards and for the 2016 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. She has also won five Irish Film and Television Awards in both acting and writing for her work on Catastrophe. For her performance in Dating Amber, Horgan won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2023, Horgan earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Bad Sisters, including Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The series also won her the BAFTA TV Award for Best Drama Series that year.

Early life Sharon Lorencia Horgan was born on 13 July 1970 in Hackney, London. Her mother is Irish, and her father is from New Zealand and of Irish descent. In November 2024 Sharon appeared on Today 3rd Hour. She said, "We were brought up on a turkey farm so... anything but that [was what we wanted to do]." Her second-youngest brother, Shane, is a sports pundit and retired professional rugby player, and the other children in the family work in the arts. Her brother (Shane) said, "We can not end up [working in the same career as our father]..." Sharon added, "He didn't want to be in the turkey business. It really ruined the Dad. That's why we have a lot of deep-seated trauma [in our family]. I thank the Lord all the time for that very thing that we don't have both a Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day with turkey dinners." Horgan went to the Sacred Heart convent school in Drogheda.

Career Early career As a young actress struggling to make ends meet, she took a series of odd-jobs. At the age of 27, Horgan started a degree in English and American Studies at Brunel University in west London, graduating in 2000. Around that time, Horgan met British writer Dennis Kelly, while they were both working in youth theatre, and they started writing together, producing material they then sent to the BBC, for which they won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2001 for Sketch Writing and Performance. for Best Female Newcomer for her performance.

In 2010 Horgan appeared in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. The US/UK comedy series was written by David Cross, who also appeared as the title anti-hero, an incompetent American who takes a job leading the London sales team for an energy drink. She played Alice Bell, the café owner on whom he developed a crush. In September 2011, she appeared in the world premiere of Saul Rubinek's play Terrible Advice at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. The play was set in Los Angeles and she played Delila, one half of its two warring couples.

In June 2012 Horgan was part of the ensemble cast for the pilot episode of Psychobitches, shown as part of Sky Arts 1's Playhouse Presents strand. In the sketch show, famous women from history are psychoanalysed by Rebecca Front's therapist; she played the novelist Jane Austen in the pilot, and later characters included Eva Peron, Cleopatra, Boudicca and Carmen Miranda. Two series of Psychobitches followed; the first was shown in May 2013, and the second in November 2014. She is well known for her role in Catastrophe, alongside Rob Delaney, a show which they co-created for Channel 4 and Amazon. Horgan also appeared in 2020’s second series of Criminal UK, BBC’s The Borrowers (2011), Dead Boss (2012) and Channel 4’s Free Agents (2009) and Bad Sugar (2012). She stars in and executive produces Channel 4 comedy-drama series This Way Up (2019–2021).

Horgan played a supporting role in the 2018 dark comedy film Game Night as Sarah, a newcomer to the group of friends unwittingly roped into the game. She also appeared in films Death of a Superhero (2011), Run and Jump (2013), Man Up (2015), with Simon Pegg, Military Wives (2019) with Kristen Scott Thomas, Dating Amber (2020), and BBC Two film Together (2021) alongside James McAvoy.

She has voiced characters in the films Valiant (2005) and the short film Miss Remarkable & Her Career (2010). In 2017, she provided the voices of Minerva Campbell (the long-lost mother of the protagonist, Finn the Human) in the Cartoon Network animated series Adventure Time, and Courtney Portnoy in the animated series Bojack Horseman. She voices Queen Dagmar in Matt Groening’s animated series Disenchantment, and Kathleen in the animated series Bob's Burgers. She voices a Russian ex show cat Tabitha in 2021’s Housebroken which she executive produced.

Horgan also appeared in the feature film adaptation of the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie as Miss Hedge, which was released in September 2021. She has a supporting role in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent opposite Nicolas Cage, which was released in March 2022.

Writer Horgan's career breakthrough was Pulling, which she co-wrote with Dennis Kelly and starred in. She played Donna, an irresponsible marketing manager who calls off her wedding at the last minute, and one of three women sharing a flat in Penge, south London. It was noted for its broad humour about sex and the consumption of alcohol. Pulling was first shown on BBC Three in 2006, then repeated on BBC Two in 2008. The six-episode series became a ‘sleeper hit’, which gained iconic status with fans and was lauded by critics. A second series of six episodes ran March–April 2008 on BBC Three.

Despite good ratings and critical plaudits, Pulling was cancelled after two series, although an hour-long final episode was broadcast in May 2009. In 2007, the show was nominated for a British Academy Television Award and Horgan was nominated for a British Comedy Award. In 2008, she won a British Comedy Award for Pulling. In 2009, she was nominated for a British Academy Television Award and the show won a British Comedy Award.

In 2007, Horgan wrote Angelo's directed by Chloe Thomas and in June 2012 Horgan starred in Dead Boss, a sitcom set in a prison, which she wrote with comic Holly Walsh. From 2015–2019, Horgan co-starred and co-wrote the sitcom Catastrophe with American comic Rob Delaney. The two first met on Twitter, and because they made each other laugh decided to work together. They have both said Catastrophe was broadly based on their own personal experiences. In it she played Sharon, an Irishwoman living in London who becomes pregnant by Rob, an American she meets while he is on a business trip to London. Carrie Fisher played his mother. It was an instant critical success and after the second episode of the six-part series was aired Channel 4 announced it had commissioned a second series. Horgan was twice nominated for a Best Female Comedy Performance BAFTA for her role. In 2016, Channel 4 ordered a third and fourth season.

Horgan wrote Divorce (2016–2019), In January 2013 in Secrets of a Good Marriage she discovered how various couples make their relationships work; and in On the Verge of a Midlife Crisis, she spoke to six women who had coped with the experience. Horgan appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show Chain Reaction in March and April 2015. One week she was interviewed by Olivia Colman and the following week she interviewed Dennis Kelly. The couple lived in London,

One of her younger brothers, Shane, is a former international rugby union player who played wing or centre for Leinster and Ireland, and is now a rugby analyst for RTÉ Sports. Her youngest brother is Mark Horgan

Filmography

Film Year Title Role Notes 2005 Imagine Me & You Beth Valiant Charles De Girl (voice) 2010 Miss Remarkable & Her Career Miss Remarkable (voice) Short filmEnglish dub 2011 Death of a Superhero Renata Clarke 2013 Run & Jump Tara 2015 Man Up Elaine 2018 Game Night Sarah Darcy 2019 Military Wives Lisa How to Build a Girl Jo March 2020 Dating Amber Hannah Cotter 2021 Ladies Room Narrator Short film Everybody's Talking About Jamie Miss Hedge 2022 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Olivia Henson 2023 A Greyhound of a Girl Scarlett (voice) Rally Road Racers Abby Jacks (voice)

Television

Radio

Theatre

Awards and nominations