Amy-Joyce Hastings

Amy-Joyce Hastings (born 24 September 1980 ) is an  Irish actress who has worked in film, television and theatre. Her first role was in the 1990 film  Fools of Fortune.  She has also featured in Season 1 of  The Tudors alongside  Henry Cavill. Her latest role was in Brit flick  Little Deaths which premiered at Film4 Frightfest in February 2011 and the SXSW festival in Ausin Texas in March 2011.  Recently it was announced she was playing the lead role of Kate Loughlin in British Rom Com  The Callback Queen due for release in 2013. ==Background [edit] ==

Amy-Joyce Hastings was born in Ireland to parents Robert and Catríona Hastings. Taking a very early interest in acting she enrolled in drama classes at the Gaiety School of Acting when it opened in Dublin in the 1980s. Here she was scouted by casting director Debbie McWilliams and eventually cast in the role of Geraldine Quinton in Fools of Fortune opposite Julie Christie, Iain Glen and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

Three years after this, following two final rounds of casting at London's Pinewood Studios she narrowly lost out on the role of Mary Lennox in Warner Bros' The Secret Garden, directed by Agnieszka Holland. Continuing dance and acting classes throughout her younger years, she appeared in a variety of productions and made regular appearances on RTÉ youth interest television programs such as Jo Maxi and Pajo's Junxbox, as well as reviewing children's films for thePat Kenny radio show.

In 1998 she was shortlisted for the title role in a film -adapted from another William Trevor novel- Felicia's Journey, directed by Atom Egoyan. However she elected instead to train for three years at the Samuel Beckett Centre in Trinity College, Dublin – Ireland's first and only acting degree course. She graduated with a distinction in 2001, and began a full-time acting career.