BODHI RAE
BREATHNACH

Bodhi Rae Breathnach is an Irish-English actor whose early credits span television, theatre and feature films. Her agency lists work in The Capture and So Awkward, while the National Theatre records her as one of the performers sharing the role of Sarah in Beth Steel’s Till the Stars Come Down. Directed by Bijan Sheibani, the production opened at the Dorfman Theatre in January 2024. It places a family gathering at the centre of the drama, giving a younger character a place within a busy adult ensemble.

Hamnet (2025), directed by Chloé Zhao, brought her feature-film debut as Susanna Shakespeare, the eldest child of William and Agnes, played by Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. The film adapts Maggie O’Farrell’s novel. Susanna’s place in the household makes this a role rooted in relationships: attention to another person, a reaction held a moment longer, or a position within a group can carry meaning alongside spoken dialogue. Those are useful details to watch when approaching her work in the film.

Shelter (2026) changes the pace. Breathnach plays Jessie opposite Jason Statham in Ric Roman Waugh’s action thriller. Its premise follows a reclusive man who must protect a young girl as danger from his past returns. The pairing asks the young performer to sustain a relationship inside an action-driven story. Watching it beside Hamnet brings the different surroundings into focus: the family ensemble of a period drama and the more concentrated bond at the centre of a survival thriller.

Her agency also credits her as Margaret Dashwood in Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility, a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Taken together, these credits describe a career still taking shape across different forms of storytelling. The clearest introduction is through the individual roles and the collaborators around them, rather than predictions about where the career will go next.