actor
Personal Information
Born on January 19, 1976, in Manchester, England; daughter of Peter (a city council employee) and Phyllis (an electronics company employee) Thomason
Education: Manchester Metropolitan University, BA in English, c. 1999.
Career
Actor, 1988-; Oldham Theatre Workshop, Lancashire, England, actor, c. 1988.
Life's Work
Actress Marsha Thomason began her career in British television, and moved quickly into starring roles opposite such Hollywood heavyweights as Eddie Murphy and James Caan. In 2003 she began appearing in the NBC series Las Vegas, which starred her opposite Caan's Las Vegas casino-surveillance chief in what quickly became one of the breakout shows of the fall season. "When I started in the series I knew nothing about gambling," she told John Millar of Glasgow's Daily Record. "I did not even know how to shuffle a deck of cards. Now I can do some neat tricks."
Thomason was born in Manchester, England, on January 19, 1976. That same year, Bugsy Malone, a lighthearted Hollywood film about mobsters, was released. The musical by Alan Parker featured a roster of child stars, including a young Jodie Foster, portraying well-known 1930s underworld figures. Thomason has said she was fascinated by it. "I think my inspiration to become an actress is down to the film Bugsy Malone," she told Sally Morgan, a writer for the London newspaper the Mirror. "After I saw it, I used to invent plays and create a makeshift theatre, with sheets as curtains, in my bedroom. I bribed my little sister Kristy to appear in my productions, then made our parents watch."
At the age of twelve, Thomason's at-home stagings had gained her enough experience to win a place with the Oldham Theatre Workshop, a renowned children's ensemble in Lancashire. She appeared in a number of its plays and musicals, and took her first professional job at the age of 14 on a Saturday-morning children's show called The 8:15 from Manchester. Her breakout role came in 1993, when she was cast in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television film, Safe, about a community of homeless people in London. A year later, she won a small role as a nurse in her first feature film, Priest.
After Thomason finished at the North Manchester High School For Girls, she went on to Manchester Metropolitan University, and earned her undergraduate degree in English there. She worked during her college years, winning an especially plum role opposite Helen Mirren in the critically acclaimed crime series, Prime Suspect. In 1997, she was cast in a regular role on a BBC comedy-crime drama, Pie in the Sky. It starred Richard Griffiths, who later went on to play Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter films, as a top police detective whose boss refuses to let him retire to run his restaurant.
By 1998, Thomason had moved to London and was cast as Sharon "Shazza" Pearce in Playing the Field, a hit BBC series about a women's soccer team. As one of the Castlefield Blues, Thomason's Shazza was a loose cannon, prone to substance abuse. "It's a very physical part," she told Morgan in the Mirror interview. "In one scene I headbutt a player from a rival team and call her a fat cow." Thomason worked overtime during these years, having taken a part on another British television series, Where the Heart Is.
Thomason's first attempt to tackle an American accent in her work came when she played a prostitute in a West End theater production of Breath Boom at the Royal Court Theatre. That experience came in handy when she was cast alongside Martin Lawrence in the hit 2001 comedy film Black Knight. Lawrence played a hapless medieval theme-park employee who time-travels back into the past. Thomason was cast as Victoria, a chambermaid in the royal court with some unusually modern ideas.
Thomason made two more British films, Long Time Dead, a 2002 horror tale that also featured Lukas Haas and Alec Newman, and Pure, another work released that year in which she once again played a prostitute. This time, she was a heroin addict as well. Hollywood offered her a more sedate role as Eddie Murphy's on-screen wife in The Haunted Mansion, a horror tale from 2003. The story was based on one of the venerable attractions at the Disney theme parks, much as the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride had been turned into a successful big-screen story earlier that year. Thomason played the wife of Murphy's workaholic real-estate agent, and is trapped in the eerie manor with her husband and children when the ghost who haunts it believes she is a long-lost lover. Though it was her second big-budget Hollywood feature, she was still nervous, she told Millar in the Daily Record interview. "The first day was bizarre. I felt a bit intimidated because I was doing my American accent," she recalled, and "was terrified that they would think I was rubbish and sack me."
By the time The Haunted Mansion was released--to generally dismal reviews--Thomason had already made her American network series debut in Las Vegas. The NBC drama starred a top-notch ensemble cast that included the veteran actor Caan as a former Central Intelligence Agency operative who serves as head of security at a casino. Thomason sported a glamorous wardrobe for her role as Nessa Holt, the pit boss who keeps an eye on the tables and their gamblers on the casino floor while intrigues roil behind the scenes. The series was filmed at the Mandalay Bay casino, and Thomason told one journalist that the hardest part of the job was the standard "whoosh" shot in each episode, when the camera sweeps through the casino floor. "Every single person has to freeze and hold for a while, for a minute, and then, action," she told the Washington Times's Christian Toto, and said that she and her castmates dreaded being the one who made a mistake and forced another take.
Thomason also appeared in My Baby's Daddy, released in early 2004, and The Nickel Children, a film about a child prostitution ring. She remains in awe of the differences between British and American television and film sets. "Here, there are so many more people involved in the shows," she told Toto. "Even the sound stages and sets dwarf their British counterparts."
Works
Selected works
Further Reading
Periodicals
— Carol Brennan
| Marsha Thomason | |
|---|---|
Marsha Thomason at San Diego Comic Con, in 2010 |
|
| Born | Marsha Lisa Thomason 19 January 1976 Moston, Manchester, England |
| Occupation | Actress, |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Spouse | Craig Sykes (2009-present) |
Marsha Lisa Thomason (born 19 January 1976) is an English actress who is known in the United States for playing Nessa Holt in the first two seasons of the NBC series Las Vegas, for her recurring role on ABC's Lost as Naomi Dorrit, and for playing FBI agent Diana Berrigan on USA Network's White Collar.
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Thomason was born in Moston, Manchester, the daughter of Phyllis (née McCrae), a Jamaican electronics company employee and Peter Thomason, who worked in politics.[1] She attended Holy Trinity Primary School in Blackley and North Manchester High School for Girls, before attending Oldham Sixth Form College to study for A levels in Media Studies, Theatre Studies and Performing Arts. Thomason attended the Manchester Metropolitan University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. From the age of 13, Marsha attended Oldham Theatre Workshop where she was able to participate within youth theatre productions which would later contribute in her confidence towards becoming an aspiring professional actress.
Thomason first came to prominence on British television in the series Playing the Field and Where The Heart Is, as well as in the first series of the BBC Three drama Burn It. In the U.S., she appeared in Disney's The Haunted Mansion, playing Eddie Murphy's wife. She played Brandy in the film My Baby's Daddy, and played Victoria in Black Knight. She also played Vicki in Pure. She starred in the US television series Las Vegas as Nessa Holt in seasons 1 and 2, a total of 47 episodes.
On 21 October 2004 she was a guest on the radio show Loveline. In January 2008 she appeared in Messiah V: The Rapture, alongside Marc Warren. In August 2008 Thomason was cast as a series regular in the CW show Easy Money.[2]
In 2009 Thomason appeared on General Hospital; her first appearance was 20 November.[3] After appearing in the pilot episode for White Collar as agent Diana Berrigan, she returned for the first season finale. It was announced that she would appear on the series full time in the second season.[4][5] She will be the new voice of Diana in Hitman: Absolution.
Thomason was a recurring character on the television show Lost as Naomi Dorrit. Being a friend of Dominic Monaghan (who played Charlie Pace on the series), she was a huge fan of the show and excited to be cast. She also found the lack of character transparency to be refreshing: "That’s kind of difficult as an actor, but also freeing in a way, because you just have to play the scenes as they’re written. And then if you find out if you’re a big villain or whatever, then you play that... You know when that worked really brilliantly? On 24 with Nina Myers. She didn’t have a clue – Sarah Clarke, the actress – and that made it really brilliant, because she played Nina honestly. Really honestly. And then she was a villain. Genius. That was such a great one."[6]
She first appeared in the third season episode "Catch-22," which aired on 18 April 2007, and continued to appear until the season finale "Through the Looking Glass". She next appeared in "The Beginning of the End" and in the season 5, episode 13, "Some Like it Hoth".
On 5 April 2009 Thomason married Craig Sykes, a lighting technician, in Malibu, California.[7]
Thomason is an avid supporter of Manchester City.[8]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Safe | Wendy | TV film |
| 1994 | Priest | Nurse | |
| 1996 | Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgment | Janice Lafferty | |
| Brazen Hussies | Stripper with fire | TV film | |
| 2001 | Swallow | Tina Harford | TV film |
| Black Knight | Chambermaid Number 7 / Victoria the Chambermaid / Nicole | ||
| 2002 | Long Time Dead | Lucy | |
| Pure | Vicki | ||
| 2003 | The Haunted Mansion | Sara Evers / Elizabeth Henshaw | |
| 2004 | My Baby's Daddy | Brandy | |
| 2005 | The Nickel Children | Beatrice | |
| 2006 | The Package | Melissa | Short film |
| Caffeine | Rachel | ||
| The Fast One | Lucy | Comedy short | |
| The Tripper | Linda | ||
| Tug of War | Sam | Comedy short | |
| 2007 | LA Blues | Carla | |
| 2008 | Messiah V: The Rapture | Mel Palmer | TV film |
| 2009 | Into the Blue 2: The Reef | Azra | Film |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Prime Suspect | 1 Episode: Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement | |
| 1997 | Pie in the Sky | Sally | 8 Episodes |
| 1998 | Playing the Field | Sharon 'Shazza' Pearce | |
| Where the Heart Is | Jacqui Richards | 3 Episodes: "The Final Curtain", "The Healing Game" & "Fresh" | |
| 1999 | Love in the 21st Century | Louise | Episode: "Threesome" |
| 2001 | Table 12 | Denie | Episode: "Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner" |
| 2003 | Burn It | Tina | |
| 2003–2005 | Las Vegas | Nessa Holt | Seasons 1-2 (Main cast: 47 Episodes) |
| 2007 | Cane | Miranda Sanfilipino | Episode: "Family Business" |
| 2007–2010 | Lost | Naomi Dorritt | 12 Episodes |
| 2008 | Life | Jill Abrahams | Episode: "The Business of Miracles" |
| 2008 | Easy Money | Julia Miller | series regular |
| 2009–2010 | Make It or Break It | MJ Martin | 6 Episodes |
| 2009–present | White Collar | Diana Berrigan | Season 1 (2 episodes: Pilot, Finale); Season 2+ (Main Cast)[4] |
| 2009 | General Hospital | Gillian Carlyle | 2009 |
| 2011 | 2 Broke Girls | Cashandra | Episodes: "And Hoarder Culture", "And The Really Petty Cash" |
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