Fiona Shaw (Andor): who is his wife Sonali Deraniyagala, with a tragic story?

At 64, Fiona Shaw has a fine film career. After playing the role of Petunia Dursley in Harry Potter or that of Carolyn Martens in Killing Eveshe is about to appear in the new series Star Wars. Indeed, the Irish actress will interpret the character of Maarva in Andoravailable from September 21, 2022 on Disney+.

On the private side, Fiona Shaw once shared the life of actress Saffron Burrows and now seems to have found true love with Sri Lankan economist Sonali Deraniyagala. The two women got married in 2018 and met under special conditions. Indeed, the actress has decided to contact the novelist after reading her memoirtranscribed in the book wavereleased in 2014. The latter tells his tragic story and the loss of his entire family, which occurred in December 2004.

Fiona Shaw’s wife lost her entire family in a tsunami

In his book waveSonali Deraniyagala says the terrible tragedy who touched her on the morning of December 26, 2004. That day, she was vacationing at the Yala Safari Beach Hotel in southern Sri Lanka when a terrible tsunami hit the Indian Ocean. With her husband, the economist Stephen Lissenburgh, she decided to try to flee by car, with their two boys, Vikram (5 years old) and Nikhil (7 years old), without having time to warn her parents Gemini and Edward. Ultimately, the vehicle was submerged by a wall of water and the family was violently separated.

The one who will become Fiona Shaw’s wife recounted her ordeal in her book. She explained that she was the only one to survive to the terrible tsunami. The bodies of her parents and son Vikram were found a few days later, while those of her husband and son Nikhil were found. identified in a mass gravethrough DNA testing.

After the tragedy, Sonali Deraniyagala is fell into depressionin alcohol and excessive drug intake and even attempted suicide to end his suffering. Eventually, writing her story allowed her to move on and accept the tragedy. In an interview given to Daily Express in 2020, the actress of Star Wars explained of his wife: “His grief doesn’t dominate our life, but it definitely defines it. I understand the value of things being with Sonali (…) She lives knowing that at any moment the world could end because she lost her world. It brought me down to earth, I guess, about a lot of things“. A moving testimony on her way of seeing life now that she shares that of a woman who lost everything in just a few minutes.