Hanna Mangan Lawrence
Hanna Mangan Lawrence is an actor, born 1991.
Born in London in 1991 and raised into the Australian industry, Hanna Mangan-Lawrence had her breakthrough at home well before anyone abroad noticed: Holly in the drama series Bed of Roses, which brought an AFI Award nomination in 2008 and a Logie nomination in 2009.
The Australian films came first and were unusually good. She was Lily in Nash Edgerton's The Square (2008), where the credit still carries the older spelling of her name, and Chasely in the horror picture Acolytes (2009). Both are tight, mean genre pieces from a period when Australian cinema was turning out a lot of them.
The international job was Seppia in Spartacus: Vengeance, a role in a series that ran on blood, muscle and Roman scheming, and one of the few parts on this list with real scale. After it the work spread out: Shay Ryan in the thriller X (2011), Laina in Beyond the Reach (2014), Betty in Red Dog: True Blue (2016), Teresa Keaton in the outbreak series Containment, Gabrielle Antolovich in the drama Riot (2018), and Mia in the survival film Sweetheart (2019), which is the most interesting thing she has done lately, a stripped-down piece with a very small cast.
Movies (7)
TV (3)
Where to start with Hanna Mangan Lawrence
Spartacus is where most people meet her, and Seppia is a fair introduction to the show's whole approach: everyone is scheming, nobody is comfortable, and the performances have to be big enough to survive the blood.
Her better work is smaller. The Square is the one to see, a lean Australian crime film that keeps tightening, and Acolytes is the nastier companion piece out of the same scene. Sweetheart is the recent highlight, a survival picture that trusts silence, and Riot is the one with something to say, an account of Australian activism warmer than it sounds. Beyond the Reach is the desert thriller, Containment the American network series, and Red Dog: True Blue the family film for an entirely different audience. Her signature Australian role, Holly in Bed of Roses, is not among the credits listed here.