Marisa Abela
Marisa Abela is an actor, born 1996.
Abela is from Brighton, and the career has moved fast. COBRA (2020) gave her a recurring role as Ellie Sutherland in a Sky political thriller, in the same year Industry began on BBC Two and HBO.
Industry is the work. Yasmin Kara-Hanani is a wealthy graduate on a London trading floor, and the part rests on an unusual balance: she has every advantage except the ability to stop needing to be liked, and the series is merciless about how that plays out in a room where cruelty is converted into profit. Abela won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for it.
Back to Black (2024) cast her as Amy Winehouse, the kind of role that gets judged before it is watched. She is the best thing in a film that flinches from its own subject, and the performance is more careful than the picture around it deserves.
Since then she has worked in larger rooms: Clarissa Dubose in Steven Soderbergh's spy film Black Bag (2025), Teen Talk Barbie in Barbie (2023), Sophie Jones in Rogue Agent (2022). She was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2023 and nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award. What she does best, so far, is play people who are performing confidence at a volume that gives them away.
Movies (5)
TV (2)
Where to start with Marisa Abela
So far the entire argument is Industry. Yasmin is the best-written part she has had and the series keeps escalating what it asks of her. Begin at the first season even though the later ones are stronger.
Back to Black is the famous one, best watched with the noise around it turned down. The performance is precise and sympathetic even where the film is thin.
Black Bag is a small role in a very good Soderbergh picture and the clearest signal of where she goes next. COBRA is the early television, Rogue Agent the modest thriller, and Barbie is a walk-on that people will nevertheless recognize her from.