Julie Fernandez

Encyclopedia : J : JU : JUL : Julie Fernandez

Julie Fernandez relaxes in her wheelchair

Julie Fernandez (born April 20, 1974) is a British actress, television presenter, model, comedienne, writer, comedy-writer, comedy-actress, wheelchair user and journalist as well as an extra, but she is probably best known for her award-winning role on the BBC comedy The Office, in which she played Brenda (the girl in the wheelchair) alongside Ricky Gervais. She was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease).

Fernandez attended the Lord Mayor Treloar School, a stage school for people with disabilities, and already her acting talent was shining through - she was the star of the school play three years running staring as the first wheelchair-using Wendy from Peter Pan, a wheel-chair bound Tallulah in Bugsy Malone and Tiny Tim in Scrooge, The Musical. Her acting career began in 1992 when she starred as Vanessa Lockhead in the BBC's answer to Eastenders, soap opera Eldorado. Yet again she won praise for her sensitive and dynamic performance, whilst playing the token disabled of the cast. Julie later said of the role "This was supposed to be my big break". She went on to play Sean Maguire's wheelchair-bound girlfriend in BBC1 drama Dangerfield.

Fernandez is a prominent disability rights campaigner in the United Kingdom and has supported campaigns for the Disability Rights Commission. She set up The Disability Foundation, a British pan-disability charity boasting one of the largest disability information databases in the UK. In January 2003, she co-hosted the opening ceremony for the European Year of People with Disabilities in Athens.

In 2004, Fernandez formed a television production company called The Wheelie Good Company and is currently working on programme ideas. The company’s employment ethic is to have a balance of disabled and able-bodied employees both in front and behind camera.

In 2005 and the first half of 2006 Julie has been very busy performing, socialising, modelling and writing. She often jokes that she would like to quit the business "just to get some much-earned time off!" but it is in her blood.

External links

Trivia

Julie is writing her own sitcom which is about a girl in a wheelchair who wins the lottery, entitled Wheels of Fortune. She is currently in talks to play the first wheelchair-bound character in Eastenders: "sort of a mix between Tiffanny and Bianca, but she is in a car crash just before she gets to Albert Square and they have to put a ramp up at The Vic"

Julie is in talks with Ricky Gervais to appear in his comedy series Extras.

Julie is in talks with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for a spin-off from The Office which will feature her character Brenda outside the confines of Wernham Hogg: "I always felt that we never got to know the real Brenda and I think this would be an exciting project but unfortunately I have to get permission from Ricky and Stephen as they own all the rights to the character and the brand."

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.