Zoe Wanamaker Zoƫ Wanamaker, Honorary CBE (born May 13, 1949 in New York City) is an American-born British actress who lives and works in the United Kingdom. Holding both American and British citizenship, she is the daughter of the late Jewish American film actor/director/producer Sam Wanamaker, who left the United States for Great Britain after being blacklisted during the 1950s; he led the project to rebuild the Globe Theatre in London.
She is probably best-known by a world-wide audience for her role as Madam Hooch in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and her role in My Family. She played Clarice, one of the dimwitted twin sisters of Lord Groan in Gormenghast, a BBC television adaptation of Mervyn Peake's trilogy. She has also appeared in a variety of films, programmes, and plays.
Successful television series have included Love Hurts with Adam Faith and My Family with Robert Lindsay.
Her stage performance in Sophocles' Electra, for which she won an Olivier Award, was widely acclaimed.
Wanamaker voiced a CGI character named Lady Cassandra in the Doctor Who episode The End of the World (2005), and reprised the role (also appearing in the flesh this time) in New Earth, the first episode of the 2006 series.