Ruth Connell
Ruth Connell is an actor, born 1979.
Dance came first. Ruth Connell worked as a professional dancer and choreographer before acting took over, and the physical training is visible in the role she is known for: Rowena MacLeod, the witch who kept being written back into Supernatural after arriving roughly a decade into its run. She plays her broad and precise at the same time, a performance pitched somewhere between pantomime villain and genuine threat, which is exactly the register that show rewarded.
Stage work runs alongside it. A Los Angeles production of Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers had her doubling Mrs Darling and Captain Hook, and it brought a best leading actress nomination at the 2013 BroadwayWorld Los Angeles awards.
The screen credits here are few and mostly clustered around one universe. She returned to Rowena in The Winchesters, played the Night Nurse in Dead Boy Detectives, and has picked up voice work in The Loud House Movie and LEGO Pixar: BrickToons. She also produces. For an actor whose screen reputation rests almost entirely on one recurring part, the notable thing is how far that part travelled: she was still playing Rowena in a prequel series years after the original ended.
Movies (2)
TV (4)
Where to start with Ruth Connell
Everything routes through Supernatural, and there is no honest way around it. Rowena is a late addition to a very long series, so the sensible approach is to find where she first appears rather than starting at episode one and waiting several seasons for her.
The Winchesters is the natural follow-up, the same character in a prequel that never got the run it wanted. Dead Boy Detectives is the more interesting piece of casting, a different tone entirely and proof she can do menace without the theatrical flourish.
The voice work in LEGO Pixar: BrickToons and The Loud House Movie is pleasant and slight. Her stage career, which is where the range actually sits, is not something a filmography can show you.