Ruby O'Donnell (born 26 October 2000) is an English actress. Since 2013, O'Donnell has portrayed the role of

Peri Lomax Peri Lomax is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks''. She is played by Ruby O'Donnell, who made her first screen appearance on 4 October 2013. Storylines Peri arrives with mother Sam (Lizzie Roper) to surprise ...

in the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

soap opera ''

Hollyoaks ''Hollyoaks'' is a British soap opera which began airing on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was created by Phil Redmond, who had previously conceived the soap opera ''Brookside (TV series), Brookside''. Since 2005, episodes have been aired on ...

''. For her portrayal of Peri, she won the award for Best Young Actor at the 2016 British Soap Awards.

Early and personal life

O'Donnell was born in

Warrington Warrington () is a town and unparished area in the borough of the same name in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Mersey. It is east of Liverpool, and west of Manchester. The population in 2019 was estimat ...

and grew up in Appleton. She has two brothers. She attended Grappenhall Heys Primary School and then Bridgewater High School. She took acting classes at Little Stars Stage School. Since 2019, O'Donnell has been in a relationship with professional rugby player Sam Halsall.

Career

In September 2013, it was announced that O'Donnell had been cast in ''

'' as

, the youngest child of the newly established Lomax family. Of the family's arrival, executive producer

Bryan Kirkwood Bryan Kirkwood (born 1976) is a British television producer. He was the producer of the Channel 4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks'' from 2006 until 2009, and was the executive producer of the BBC soap ''EastEnders'' from 2010 until 2012. He returned as t ...

commented: "I was conscious of the fact that Ste was languishing on his own with no family around him. I'm eager to bring in a strong female force." On 23 November 2014, it was announced that O'Donnell's character would be involved in a teen pregnancy storyline alongside character

Tom Cunningham Tom Cunningham is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks'', played by Ellis Hollins. With Tom being a young child for most of his tenure, his early years featured minimal storylines, including the numerous death ...

(

Ellis Hollins Ellis Hollins (born 14 November 1999) is an English actor. He is known for portraying the role of Tom Cunningham in the Channel 4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks''. In 2006, he appeared in ''Alpha Male'', a family film released in the United Kingdom. Ac ...

). The storyline was devised as an effort to promote

safe sex Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices (such as condoms) to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer se ...

. On the storyline, O'Donnell said "Some of the scenes have been hard to tackle because I am still quite young and I've had to do a lot of research for them. I am younger than Peri, as she is just turning 15 and I’m only 14 myself. So I’ve done the research to help with my performances and to find out how teenagers actually do react in these situations." She also said, "When I was first told about the story, I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect, but then I had a lot of meetings about it with the show’s executive producer Bryan Kirkwood, the storyliners and the other producers. They explained it to me and made me feel a lot more comfortable about it. Now I’ve got into it, I’m very excited about the storyline and I’m really enjoying doing it." For her role as Peri, O'Donnell has been nominated twice in the ''Inside Soap'' Awards in 2014 and 2015. In August 2017, O'Donnell was longlisted for Best Young Actor at the ''Inside Soap'' Awards however she did not progress to the shortlist. O'Donnell has also been nominated for Best-On Screen partnership with

, and was also nominated for Best Young Performance in 2015 and Best Young Actress at The British Soap Awards in 2016. O'Donnell's character has since developed a relationship with

Juliet Nightingale Juliet Nightingale (also Quinn) is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks'', played by Niamh Blackshaw. ''Hollyoaks'' announced the character and Blackshaw's casting on 4 September 2018, with the actress making ...

(

Niamh Blackshaw Niamh Blackshaw is an English actress. She began her career appearing in television advertisements which included a national advertisement for Mr Kipling. She was then cast in the guest role of Lara Cutler in the ITV soap opera ''Coronation St ...

), for which the pair received a nomination for Best Soap Partnership at the I Talk Telly Awards.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:ODonnell, Ruby Living people 2000 births Actresses from Warrington English child actresses English soap opera actresses English people of Irish descent