Book Hera Hilmar

Hera Hilmar is an Icelandic actress who has worked on screen since childhood, beginning in 1995, and has grown into a leading presence in both Icelandic and international productions. International audiences know her best as Hester Shaw, the scarred heroine of Peter Jackson's Mortal Engines (2018), a role she won after an audition over Skype that the film's writer Philippa Boyens praised as flawless. At home in Iceland she has won the Edda Award for leading actress twice, in 2015 for playing Eik in Life in a Fishbowl and in 2017 for playing Anna in The Oath, after an earlier nomination for The Quiet Storm in 2007. The Berlin International Film Festival also picked her as an European Shooting Star in 2015. On television she played the Florentine barmaid Vanessa Moschella in Da Vinci's Demons beginning in 2013 and appeared in World Without End (2012). Her film work also includes The Fifth Estate (2013), the period drama The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017), in which she played the nurse Lillie Rowe, and An Ordinary Man opposite Ben Kingsley. Hilmar brings an international profile and a distinctive Nordic perspective on screen acting.