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SarahPeirse

  • Actor
Sarah-Peirse-Key-Profile.jpg

Sarah Peirse is a multi-award winning actor on screen and stage, best known for her portrayals of two very different mothers — the kind-hearted Honorah Rieper in Heavenly Creatures, and the disaffected sophisticate in Rain. Peirse has also won awards for Vincent Ward’s The Navigator, and one of her earliest starring roles: A Woman of Good Character.

Biography

Sarah Peirse began acting in the late 1970s. On-screen, she has made a habit of avoiding formula projects, often working with emerging directors who demonstrate a fresh eye: Vincent Ward on The Navigator, Peter Jackson on Heavenly Creatures, Christine Jeffs on Rain. For Peirse, the result has been an impressive body of awards and nominations.

Screenography

2024 As: Mary Film
2024 As: Helen Film
Addition
2024 Actor Film
2022 As: Felicity Film
Love Me
2021 As: Christine Mathieson Television

Awards

2018 Equity Ensemble Awards (Australia)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Mini-series or Telemovie (shared with nine others): Seven Types of Ambiguity 

2012 New Zealand Television Awards
Nominated for Best Performance by a Supporting Actress: for Bliss: The Beginning of Katherine Mansfield

“Peirse delivers a gorgeously haunted performance that is no less sympathetic for its subtlety.”

New York Newsday’s Jan Stuart, in a review of Rain

Related images

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A shot from Rain: Sarah Peirse as Kate, and Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki as her daughter Janey.
Photographer Alistair Guthrie. Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
Rain-Gallery-1A.jpg
Publicity image for Rain.
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
Rain_Gallery.jpg
An image from 2001 movie Rain: Sarah Peirse as Kate.
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
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The Pascoe family in 1989 series The Champion: from left to right, Gloria (played by Meredith Braun), Alf (Alistair Douglas), Rex (Milan Borich), and Bernice (Sarah Peirse).
Photo courtesy of TVNZ