Charlie Chaplin’s Granddaughter Looks Just Like The Comic Great

In 2011 Charlie’s granddaughter Oona was profiled by The Independent. The reporter tried to ascertain if he could pick up on any tell-tale resemblance to her grandfather. The British newspaper described her as ”strikingly beautiful” and added, “She is dark like him, but I suspect that owes more to her Chilean ancestry.”

“[Oona] has a dancer’s way of sitting – perched like a resting ballerina – and reckons she got her hoofing feet from her grandfather,” The Independent writer went on. The actress added, “[Charlie] was an incredible dancer and I can move.” And when Oona was asked if there were any other similarities, she joked, “Only in the mustache, which I occasionally have to sort out.”

The Independent article continued, “[Oona] is splendidly, almost ludicrously international. [She has] a background that incorporates a childhood travelling in the caravan of the international movie industry. [She also has] roots – or tendrils at least – in Spain, Switzerland, Cuba, Scotland, Chile and England.” On one side is Charlie and on the other is the New York playwright Eugene O’Neill, who was reportedly described as “the American Chekhov.”

But who exactly was Oona’s grandfather? Well, Charlie Chaplin was born in the U.K. capital of London in April 1889. His father Charles senior was a heavy drinker who walked out on the family shortly after Charlie was born. The future actor and his older half-brother Sydney were then raised by their mom Hannah – a music hall and vaudeville star whose stage name was Lily Harley.

Charlie would get his first taste of the limelight at only five years old when Lily lost her voice while performing a show. The production manager of the venue had heard young Charlie sing before, so he thrust the young boy on stage in her stead. He bowled the audience over with his star quality and even made them laugh by imitating his mom’s shaky voice.

Unfortunately, Lily’s voice never returned properly and she wound up being unable to make money. Charlie and Sydney subsequently went to live in one of London’s workhouses temporarily. Things then became more difficult after Lily was institutionalized after a spate of serious mental health issues. But Charlie was still determined to become a star.

The path to stardom wasn’t easy for Charlie, however. The actor noted in his autobiography, “I [was a] newsvendor, printer, toymaker, glass-blower, [and] doctor’s boy [among other things]. But during these occupational digressions, I never lost sight of my ultimate aim to become an actor. So, between jobs I would polish my shoes, brush my clothes, put on a clean collar and make periodic calls at Blackmore’s theatrical agency in Bedford Street off Strand.”

In 1908 Charlie joined a pantomime troupe led by the performer Fred Karno, and this gave him his first experience of entertaining audiences in the United States. Film producer Mack Sennett soon noticed the talented and funny young pantomime artist and signed him to a contract. Charlie’s screen debut then came in the 1914 short film Make a Living.

Charlie would then create The Tramp – his most famous screen persona – while working on a 1914 short called Mabel’s Strange Predicament. He was a blundering, childish character who tried to dress and behave like an upper-class gentleman. And The Tramp subsequently appeared in his own star vehicle in 1915.

The actor would then go on to become a superstar around the world. However, not everyone was a fan of Charlie, and his dalliances with many of the young actresses he shared the screen with became common knowledge. This reputation even apparently led to him being banned from entering certain U.S. states by women’s organizations, according to Biography.com.

In total, Charlie would marry four women and father 11 children. And his fourth marriage to then-18-year-old Oona O’Neill would be his happiest. They had eight children together, the first of whom was Geraldine, who would go on to become a successful actress in her own right.

Charlie sadly died on Christmas Day 1977 at his small farmhouse in Switzerland. He had set up home there over two decades earlier after being denied entry back into the U.S. by the Attorney General, who had questioned his political leanings and morals. Regardless of how America felt about him, though, he had been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II just two years prior to his passing. And this only cemented his legacy as a beloved British icon.

But returning to the modern day, television viewers will have become quite familiar with Charlie’s granddaughter over the last decade. Many will know her face, even if they have no clue about the star’s high-profile heritage. Oona Chaplin has made appearances in several extremely acclaimed British television series. For example, she played John Watson’s girlfriend in an episode of Sherlock and also starred in a 2014 Black Mirror Christmas special.

Oona has also enjoyed featured roles in BBC dramas such as The Hour, in which she played the wife of protagonist Hector Madden. The actress also starred as the half-sister of Tom Hardy’s character James Keziah Delaney in the historical series Taboo. But her most high-profile television role was undoubtedly in an all-conquering HBO fantasy series.

Oona’s family connection in the entertainment business goes even further than her grandfather, though. The star’s father is the Chilean cinematographer Patricio Castilla and her great-great granddad was James O’Neill. He was the first actor to portray the Count of Monte Cristo in an eponymous 1913 film. The family also worked in theater, with her great-grandfather being the previously mentioned Eugene O’Neill.

Finally, Charlie’s actress daughter Geraldine is Oona’s mother. In 2019 she appeared in season three of Netflix’s The Crown. Geraldine has also featured in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and A Monster Calls in recent years. Her career, meanwhile, dates back to the role of Tonya in David Lean’s classic 1965 epic Doctor Zhivago, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.

Oona acknowledged the step-up she had received from having such a prestigious heritage during an interview with The Telegraph in 2015. She noted, “Definitely I have an advantage, and I’m very grateful for it. I have been blessed with an extraordinary and wonderful family. The Chaplin name certainly makes ears prick up.”

Oona continued, “I don’t know if it’s got me any jobs, but it’s certainly got me into rooms, and all I can do is work as hard as I can and try to be as good as I can.” She then joked, “I hope that if I’m really bad they will stop giving me work.” The actress then addressed the realities of a profession that has seen her thrive but other friends struggle.

“Oh, this whole business makes no sense,” Oona explained. “I wish I could explain to my friends who are insanely talented why I am working, because I don’t know. I think maybe there might be something attractive about somebody who doesn’t necessarily know why she’s doing what she’s doing!”

Interestingly, Oona initially had no intention of pursuing acting. She told Remezcla in 2018, “At first, I firmly fought against it, because it seemed to me that it was a frivolous profession with little substance. But it was stronger than me, and when I was 15 years old, I acted in a play at school and I learned what… the magic and power of telling stories [meant].”

Oona’s acting career has seen her travel all over the world for jobs, but her multi-cultural upbringing has ensured that this kind of lifestyle is not alien to her. She was born in the Spanish capital of Madrid, but she moved around between there, Cuba, and Switzerland during her childhood. Oona is multi-lingual and apparently speaks fluent Spanish, French, Italian and English. Meanwhile the star’s first experience of acting came at Gordonstoun – a boarding school in Scotland.

Oona conducted her interview with The Telegraph in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is where she was shooting romantic drama The Longest Ride. The actress laughed and told her interviewer, “I live out of a bag, so this is everything I own, because I have either sold everything else or am in the process of selling or giving it away. Apart from my bank details, I’m off the grid.”

And it turns out that this nomadic lifestyle actually appealed to Oona. She said, “I lived in London for ten years, but I don’t live there anymore, so I am just moving around and trying to figure out where I want to be and what I want to do. I think I feel pleasantly foreign no matter where I go.”

However, Oona would likely have been based in Northern Ireland while filming her most famous role so far. In Game of Thrones she played healer Talisa Maegyr, who was introduced on the battlefields of Westerlands. It was here that she met Robb Stark – played by Richard Madden. Subsequently, they fell in love, got married and eventually Talisa fell pregnant.

But a quiet life was unlikely for the couple. In the end, Talisa and her unborn child were brutally murdered during the third season episode “The Rains of Castamere.” The savage act took place during the infamous Red Wedding – a betrayal that also saw Robb and his mother Catelyn meet their ends. Furthermore, the Daily Express called it “one of the most shocking TV events from the past decade.”

In 2019 Entertainment Weekly compiled an oral history of the Red Wedding. They spoke to several of the key players both in front of and behind the camera, one of whom was Oona. The star revealed that she knew the scene would differ slightly from how it played out in George R. R. Martin’s book before filming had commenced. After all, her character is not part of the scene in the original publication.

Oona was apparently aware that Talisa would be killed, but she had no idea how it was going to happen. She said, “So I knew when my time was up, but I didn’t know much else.” She was hoping for a fitting death scene and was surprised by the sheer scale of carnage on the script page. Oona added, “But even when it was on the page it was nothing compared to what it was like on the day.”

The scene was filmed over five days in the Northern Irish capital of Belfast. Catelyn actress Michelle Fairley told Entertainment Weekly, “We were very fortunate – we had a week to shoot the whole wedding sequence and did it chronologically as well. So, every day we edged closer to the slaughter. By the end of the week, you were getting emotional.”

For Oona, the emotion became very real and she was unable to stop crying – even after her character was meant to be lying dead on the floor. She admitted, “I was actually crying while I was dead. The director had to come over [and say], ‘Oona, you need to stop crying, dead people don’t cry. You’re dead, just be dead.’”

Oona later signed on to another huge project following her stint on Game of Thrones. In June 2017 it was announced she would be in James Cameron’s Avatar sequels, of which there will be four. According to The Hollywood Reporter Oona will play “Varang – a strong and vibrant central character who spans the length of the instalments.”

Oona was interviewed a few months later by Film School Rejects about Mateo Gil’s low-budget sci-fi movie Realive. Talk turned to her role in Avatar 2, which had been filming for two days at that point. And she was asked if she preferred working on small or large-scale projects.

“I think the thing that makes a difference is the more people that believe in the story that you’re telling on set, the better,” Oona replied. “People really get something out of it. But it’s just about how much energy is behind the story that you’re telling. So right now, in Avatar, it’s crazy. People are just so creative and so happy to be going to work every day.”

Oona continued, “There are challenges and there’s freaking difficult s**t that you need to deal with and computer stuff that nobody understands except some genius. But people believe in the project so there’s a lot of energy moving through that set. In Realive, it was very similar.”

“Mateo created such a team, because he is a person that feels and people can feel his heart, and [he’s] a very beautiful man,” Oona added. “That’s what I’m interested in. It doesn’t matter the size of it.” She also spoke of her delight at working on genre projects, saying, “Science-fiction is something I love, it’s very dear to me. Fantasy and sci-fi are platforms where I really think the human imagination can go wild and run riot. That’s amazing to me.”

Elsewhere, Oona will also soon be returning to television in CBS Studio’s The Comey Rule. The four-hour miniseries is based on James Comey’s book A Higher Loyalty. For reference, the seventh director of the FBI – who will be played by Jeff Daniels – was infamously fired by President Donald Trump in May 2017.

Meanwhile, Oona’s role in the show was announced in October 2019. She will be playing FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who allegedly had an extramarital affair with an agent colleague called Peter Strzok. Comey explicitly stated that their indiscretions embarrassed the Bureau and it led to Strzok being fired. And the whole debacle did nothing to ease tension between Comey and Trump – played by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson in the show.

Ultimately, Oona doesn’t shy away from speaking about her famous grandfather – unlike some second or third generation stars. And during a 2013 interview with Metro newspaper the actress was asked if she ever tires of people constantly talking about her heritage. She responded, “God no, I love to talk about it.”

Oona believes there’s a tremendous amount of love attached to anyone talking about her grandfather, so she’s always happy to oblige. The star went on, “It’s not like he’s some third-rate reality show idiot you have to spend your whole life apologizing for. Having Charlie Chaplin as your grandad is brilliant because everyone knows him the world over. And everyone loves him the world over. It’s really inspiring.”

Overall, Oona is very much at peace with her family legacy. She told Metro, “There’s always been a wealth of talent in my family and that can be overwhelming. The key for me was deciding I deserved to be happy. It’s not about being privileged, it’s about being grateful for the chances I’ve had.”