The world is full of talented people, and many of their names go by unnoticed because they aren’t always on the main stage. In fact, some of the most talented people in the film industry happen to be working behind the stage. Moira Buffini is one of those. She’s an incredible dramatist, director, and actor, but majority of moviegoers probably won’t recognize her if they saw her face. Well it’s time to recognize Buffini and the amazing career she’s had in the industry. Here are 10 things that you likely have never even heard of about the talented Moira Buffini.
1. Background
Moira Buffini was born and raised in a county in North West England, Cheshire. She was born on May 29, 1965 and comes from Irish ethnicity. She attended school at The County High School, Leftwich, which was known as the Northwich County Grammar School for Girls during her time of attendance. Buffini attended college at the London University from 1983 to 1986. She studied English and Drama at the Goldsmith College and at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
2. Playwright
Before she’s anything, Buffini is a terrific playwright. Throughout her career in drama, she has written and co-written 12 plays. Buffini wrote her first play, Jordan, along with fellow playwright Anna Reynolds in 1992. That play won her a performance award from Time Out and a Writers’ Guild Award for Best Fringe play. Many of her other plays have won other awards as well. It’s a testament to her skill in writing and her ability to convey emotions through her stories. Buffini could have had a solid career as a playwright, but she’s a well-rounded artist that’s just able to succeed in other industries as well.
3. Film
It isn’t such a huge stretch to go from the live stage to a stage in front of cameras. In fact, Buffini’s transition into film was so seamless and natural; she made it look quite easy. Buffini’s first foray into film adaptation was with Tamara Drewe. Originally written by Posey Simmonds, Tamara Drewe was a weekly comic strip published on The Guardian for 13 months. She wrote a film adaptation to the comic in 2007, and since then, Buffini has written 7 other film adaptations.
4. Musical
She writes plays. She writes films. It isn’t hard to believe that Buffini writes lyrics as well. When you’re a talented writer, you should probably be able to write anything. Buffini certainly can, and her last project released in 2015 was not just a play. It was a musical. Wonder.landwas a musical inspired by none other than Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It was a gem of a musical that premiered at the Manchester International Festival.
5. Monsterists
It’s clear that Buffini has an affinity with the theater arts. She’s lived it all her life; she’s worked in the industry for her entire career. Following her works and her style, it’s easy to see that Buffini’s heart is for the larger platform. Along with her peers, Buffini founded the Monsterists. The Monsterists are a group of playwrights that seek to promote large-scale theater work. The group of talented writers got tired of performing masterpieces in small boxes. They need a larger stage to hold all that talent, and the idea is definitely catching on.
6. Tragedy
Whether we believe it or not, most of us are affected by our childhood. In many ways, Moira Buffini’s early life has defined much of who she is now–as an artist and as a person. Buffini experienced a deep tragedy early in her life. Her father passed away when she was only 4 years old. Her mother ended up not remarrying again, and she brought up Moira and two other daughters. It’s the foundation that made Buffini the strong woman that she is, with strong convictions about the role of women in the world.
7. Silence
One of Buffini’s most powerful plays was dedicated to her mother, Susan. Susan was an Irish nurse, who became both mom and dad to Buffini and her sisters growing up. The play, Silence, depicted the strength that Susan had all those years when she had to parent all on her own. While Buffini has had a plethora of strong female characters in many of her plays, none of them were as personal as the character in Silence.
8. Family
Moira wasn’t the only one in the family that ended up with all the artistic talents. One of her sisters, Fiona, actually became Moira’s partner in crime when it came to theater. Both sisters became obsessed with theater when they were just children. When they got older, Moira and Fiona actually ended up working on a couple of projects together. While Moira became an actor and writer, Fiona pursued directing and became quite adept at it. The two collaborated on a couple of projects so far, Dinner and Gabriel.
9. Diary
Writers have to write, and as a teen there’s no better outlet than a diary. Buffini confesses to writing on a diary obsessively when she was younger. She regards herself to be a compulsive writer, which would really come in handy later on for her career. However, she’s embarrassed at the thought that she probably wrote more on her diary than actually lived her life. She made a pact with herself that she’d stop writing in college just so she can live out her life. She did just that, and she was all the better for it.
10. Martin
Buffini shares her life with her partner Martin, and the two have been together for quite some time. There’s no bond like that shared between two struggling actors. When Moira met Martin, they were only in drama school. They’d end up moving to South London together; and although they struggled during those early years, they came out strong and successful in the end. Martin has been teaching drama, and well, you now know what Moira’s been up to.
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