Biography:

Evanna Patricia Lynch is an Irish actress and model. She rose to prominence playing Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film series, appearing in four Harry Potter films and their tie-in video games. Lynch has made fashion accessories and has recorded an audiobook (Foster by Claire Keegan). She has appeared in photoshoots for various magazines, and modelled for Katrin Thomas and Ciaran Sweeney.

Harry Potter

In 2006, Lynch auditioned at a casting call in London for the role of Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film in the series adapted from the books. After auditioning against 15,000 other girls, and a subsequent screen test with lead actor Daniel Radcliffe, she was cast at the age of 14. Producers were impressed with her affinity for the character; David Heyman said "The others could play Luna; Evanna Lynch is Luna." Although uninvolved in the casting process, Rowling believed that Lynch was perfect for the role. She had never acted professionally before the Harry Potter series, her experience limited to school plays. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was Lynch's debut screen performance in 2007. The film was a box office hit, taking US$938 million worldwide, and garnered generally favourable reviews. Critics praised the performances of the supporting cast, often singling out Lynch for particular acclaim; A. O. Scott of The New York Times called her performance "spellbinding", and Jane Watkins of Country Life said she "[brought] an appealing sweetness to her character that's not so developed in the book". She reprised her role as Luna in the film's tie-in video game.

Two years later, Lynch again starred as Luna in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth installment in the series. The film was critically and financially successful. Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe wrote that Lynch as Luna "combats the movie's occasional sluggishness with a hilarious sluggishness of her own", and Michael Dwyer of The Irish Times called her the best Irish actress of 2009 for her work on the film. Her performance earned her Scream Award and Young Artist Award nominations, and she again reprised her role in the film's tie-in video game.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, the first of two films adapted from the seventh and final Harry Potter book, was released in 2010. The film was a success at the box office and drew generally favourable reviews from critics. James Verniere of The Boston Herald commented that Luna "is still delightfully lunar," while Simon Miraudo of Quickflix criticised the film commenting that "the delightful Evanna Lynch is brutally underutilised as the loopy Luna Lovegood". She again reprised her role in the film's tie-in video game.

The following year, Lynch again appeared as Luna in the eighth and final instalment in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. The film opened to universal critical acclaim and went on to become the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, grossing US$1.328 billion in box-office receipts worldwide. Moira Macdonald of The Seattle Times wrote that Lynch "continues to be all-that-and-a-radish-earring as the ever-wafting Luna Lovegood," and Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel named her as "maybe" one of his "favorite players in the finale." She again reprised her role in the film's tie-in video game. In August 2012 at Leakycon in Chicago she joined the cast of StarKid to play Luna Lovegood in a script reading of the third Harry Potter parody musical, A Very Potter Senior Year (the other two being A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel.)

The author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, gave a speech during the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on 7 July 2011 in London, England. She stated that there were seven major cast members in the series, whom she referred to as The Big Seven, and she named Lynch as one of the seven members, along with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis, and Bonnie Wright. Rowling has said that, of all the actors in the film series, Lynch has had the most influence on how her character was subsequently written. In 2012, she told Charlie Rose that when composing the final books, "I saw her. [She] got in my head. I even heard her voice when I was writing Luna."

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