Matilda Lawler, born on September 8, 2008, is best known for her starring roles in the film ‘Flora & Ulysses’ and the HBO Max miniseries ‘Station Eleven.’ Lawler has been nominated for a Gotham Award, an Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
A rising film and television actress, Lawler is recognized for her portrayal of Kirsten in ‘Station Eleven,’ a young survivor navigating a post-apocalyptic world 20 years after a flu pandemic wipes out most of civilization. She also starred in the Disney+ film ‘Flora & Ulysses’ and appeared throughout the second season of HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age.’
Lawler made her professional acting debut in a 2019 episode of Evil. In 2020, she starred in a short film titled ‘Good Grief.’ She has appeared in more than 25 episodes of television during her developing career. For her work on ‘Station Eleven,’ The New Yorker described Lawler as “a gifted performer.” She recently played Betty in Disney+’s limited series ‘The Santa Clauses.2
In an interview with Rollacoaster, Lawler shared that her real-life pandemic experience helped her prepare for her role in ‘Station Eleven.’ “I was able to use a lot of this new thing that I was actually experiencing first hand, and apply it to my character. As an actor, you always have to find ways to make the circumstances of your character real, but you usually have to use substitutions from your life that aren’t exactly the same. But with the pandemic, it was like, “I’m actually living through a pandemic!”. It wasn’t nearly as terrible as the flu that wiped out 99% of the population, but it was still a pandemic. So I could relate to Kirsten more, I think it did help me in that respect.”
‘Station Eleven’ follows young Kirsten as she witnesses her mentor Arthur Leander (Gael Garcia Bernal) die of a heart attack on stage during the opening night of King Lear. This tragedy is compounded by a global pandemic that swiftly kills 99.9% of the world’s population. Jeevan Chaudhary (Himesh Patel) leaps onto the stage to help the stricken actor, but he soon becomes young Kirsten’s only friend. He promises to take her home safely, sparking a journey that spans over 20 years and unfolds across the miniseries.
When Jeevan and Kirsten discover that Kirsten’s parents are not at home and that the pandemic has already begun, Jeevan offers to take her to his brother Frank’s (Nabhaan Rizwan) apartment. There, they spend the first 80 days of the pandemic as a makeshift family. The story then jumps forward several years to find Kirsten as an adult (played by Mackenzie Davis), now separated from Frank and Jeevan. What happened to their group and how they lost touch become central mysteries of Station Eleven.
The series’ first episode is largely told from Kirsten’s perspective, with later episodes revisiting early scenes from the viewpoints of other characters. This storytelling approach reveals key information that deepens the viewer’s understanding of the story while mirroring Kirsten’s emotional journey.
You can watch the following movies and TV shows to catch up with Matilda Lawler: ‘The Santa Clauses,’ ‘The Gilded Age,’ ‘Ezra,’ ‘Station Eleven,’ ‘Evil,’ ‘Flora & Ulysses,’ ‘Good Grief,’ and ‘The Block Island Sound.’
