Age: 17
female
Catherine Clinch (born 2009 or 2010) is an Irish child actress. She made her film debut in The Quiet Girl (2022). Clinch grew up in Ranelagh, Dublin. Her father, Tom Clinch, is a stockbroker, and her mother is the singer Méav Ní Mhaolchatha. She took acting classes from a young age. Clinch first appeared on screen in Colm Bairéad's The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) as Cáit, a reserved 9-year-old who spends the summer of 1981 on a distant relative's farm. Auditions sought a lead actress who could speak Irish, the language of most of the film, and advertised the role at Irish-language schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film's producers recalled deciding quickly that Clinch was right for the role—able to carry the film—when they saw her audition tape. Shot in 2020 and released in 2022, the film was critically acclaimed alongside praise in particular for Clinch's performance. She was commended for conveying "a deep reservoir of emotions" while showing studious restraint. She was awarded Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Quiet Girl at the 18th IFTAs.
A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew. It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other. In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.
