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Olivia Hallinan

Olivia Hallinan born 20 January 1984 is an English actress best known for her role as Kim in the critically acclaimed Sugar Rush and Ellie in Girls in Love. She also starred as the main character, Laura Timmins in the 2008 series Lark Rise to Candleford.

Olivia Hallinan is the second youngest of four sisters,She is from Twickenham, West London. Hallinan began training at her mother, actress Maggie Taylor's Saturday Drama School All Expressions in Teddington when she was 11, and then went on to professional acting. After attending St Catherine's School in Twickenham, and Notting Hill & Ealing High School, in Ealing, Hallinan went on to study English and Drama at the University of Manchester.

Hallinan has appeared in over 100 productions since the age of seven. Her first professional role was playing alongside Cilla Black in a 1991 production of Jack and the Beanstalk. Since then, she has in theatre, radio, film and on television shows including The Bill, Holby City, My Family and Granada TV's, Girls in Love.

At the end of her first year at the University of Manchester, Hallinan appeared in the first of two series of the cult program Sugar Rush for Channel 4, based on the Julie Burchill novel.

On 9 June 2007, Hallinan was a speaker at the Stonewall Gay Youth Conference, talking about playing a lesbian character in Sugar Rush.

While at Manchester, Hallinan was actively involved in student drama. In 2006, her final year of her degree, she starred in a new play, Wake Me Later Nicola Schofield's In the same year she played Emma in the Torchwood episode Out of Time, appeared in an episode of Trial and Retribution, and played a character in Radio 4's dramatisation of Marguerite Duras's erotic novel The Lover, broadcast between 3 and 7 September 2007.

She is currently starring as the heroine Laura Timmins in the BBC production Lark Rise to Candleford which started airing on Sunday 13 January 2008.



What members say | Filmography

Olivia Hallinan - what members say


  • Sugar Rush - Series 2
  • Sugar Rush - Series 2 review by A customer from UK
    Rated - 4 stars Fun At The Seaside! 28 April 2008
    ...luscious Lenora Crichlow) nearing the end of her year's stay in prison and Kim (Olivia Hallinan) trying to start afresh on her life as a confident streetwise young lesbian... ...  

Olivia Hallinan - filmography


Olivia Hallinan facts