Anne-Marie Duff

On November 11, 2006 she married Scottish actor and her co-star from ‘Shameless’ James McAvoy. Together they have a son Brendan McAvoy born on February 26, 2010. The couple announced their decision to divorce on May 13, 2016.

She was born on October 8, 1970, in Chiswick, London, England to painter and decorator Brendan and his wife Mary, a shoe shop worker, as their younger child among two. Her Irish immigrant parents came from Donegal, Ireland.

She grew up in Southall, London and attended the Mellow Lane School. She was a shy girl in her childhood and to overcome it she joined local youth theatre ‘Young Argosy’ associated with the Argosy Players. Gradually such pursuit led her to develop interest for the stage.

She became associated with an amateur theatre company in her mid-teens and seriously contemplated on applying to drama schools. Although her first application met with rejection, Anne-Marie furthered her study of Film and Theatre and then joined British drama school in King's Cross, London called the Drama Centre at age 19.

Anne-Marie forayed into professional theatre in the early 1990s with plays like ‘Uncle Silas’ (1994) and ‘The Mill on the Floss’ (1994). Over the years she went on to work extensively with the Royal National Theatre evolving as an accomplished stage actress.

One of her initial notable performances include portraying Natasha in British playwright and screenwriter Helen Edmundson’s 1996 stage adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel ‘War and Peace’.

She then went on to deliver several other remarkable stage performances that include in plays like ‘King Lear’ (1997–1998), ‘Vassa’ (1999) and ‘Collected Stories’ (1999–2000). The latter that was directed by Howard Davies and had its West End premiere in November 1999 and closed on February 5, 2000 at the Royal Haymarket Theatre, fetched her Laurence Olivier Awards nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Meanwhile she forayed into television featuring in few episodes of series’ like ‘Trial & Retribution’ (1997) and ‘The Way We Live Now’ (2001); in radio playing Viola in ‘Twelfth Night’ (1998) and Cypassis in ‘The Art of Love’ (2000); as also played role of ‘The Woman’ in the short film ‘Mild and Better’ (1998).

Her initial big-screen works includes films like the 2001 espionage thriller ‘Enigma’ and the 2002 drama ‘The Magdalene Sisters’. The latter saw her playing the starring role of Margaret McGuire.