Megan Burns was born in Liverpool on the 25th of June 1986, but when she was three years old her father left her and her mother, and when she was 11 her grandmother sent her to a drama class. From there she received the part of Teresa in Stephen Frear's film 'Liam' (2000) and won the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice International Film Festival for her performance. This was a powerful and emotionally charged portrait of an ordinary family caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and tells the story of a seven-year-old boy growing up in Liverpool during the 1930s. As Liam's elder sister Teresa, she goes into service in a wealthy, cultured Jewish household and finds herself drawn into covering up her mistress's adulteries, Megan portrayed all this with sympathy and emotional clarity.
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| Winning the Marcello Mastroianni award |
Danny Boyle saw the film and cast her in his film '28 Days Later' (2002), in which she played Hannah, one of the survivors of a deadly epidemic. Megan was only 16 when she played Hannah, Frank's daughter, and the film also stars Cillian Murphy as Jim, who awakens from a coma four weeks after a dangerous virus rages across the land – transforming swathes of the population into red-eyed, murderous zombies. After that atmospheric introduction in London, Jim journeys to Manchester with fellow survivors Selena (Naomie Harris) and doting father Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his young teenage daughter Hannah (Megan Burns), as they hit the road to discover the source of a repeating radio signal. In 2021, in the midst of the Covid -19 pandemic, Megan said of the film, "When I joined the cast of 28 Days Later I had no idea of how big a cultural impact it would have and what a game-changer it would be to the 'zombie' genre. Even now after all these years, (or perhaps especially now with the current situation) people want to talk about the film and that's incredible."
At only 19-years-old, she changed course and left acting and performed in an unsuccessful band formed in 2006, the initial line-up consisting of Megan (under the pseudonym Betty Curse), guitarist John King, bassist Adam Prendergast and drummer, Chris Prendergast. She was said to be the real life incarnation of cult Japanese cartoon character Emily Strange and was described, 'With her big, backcombed hair and black lemur eyes, she's the good-looking goth girl next door, and an increasingly confident and theatrical rock 'n' roll front woman: a star waiting to happen.' Reportedly destined to be the poster-girl for a new Goth Pop generation, and signed to Island Records, she released her debut double-A-side single, 'Excuse All The Blood'/ 'Met on the Internet', on the 29th of May 2006. Her first album 'Hear Lies' was released on the 31st of October 2006 via iTunes. The CD version, 'Here Lies Betty Curse', was released in April 2007 with the album's first single, 'God This Hurts, released in August 2007, shortly followed by 'Girl with Yellow Hair' on the 13th of November. In 2006 she performed and won on a Halloween special of the children's television program 'The Slammer' with 'Girl with Yellow Hair'. After parting with Island Records she returned to acting, cast as Whistler Silkwood in 'In2ruders' (2018), a short horror thriller about when a rising twin sister pop duo refuse to sign to a powerful record label and their lives take a dark turn.upcoming psychological thriller from award winning filmmaker Naeem Mahmood.
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