Andrea Demetriades is an Australian actress. She is best known for playing lawyer Lina Badir in the ABC legal dramas Crownies (2011) and its spin-off Janet King (2014–2017), and Daisy Dixon in the ABC and BBC One series Return to Paradise (2024–present). On stage she has played Eliza Doolittle in Sydney Theatre Company's Pygmalion and leading roles for Bell Shakespeare, and won the 2016 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Female Actor in a Leading Role in an Independent Production for the title role in Sport for Jove's Antigone. She was nominated for the AACTA Award for Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama in 2017 for Seven Types of Ambiguity, and shared Equity Ensemble Awards with the casts of that series and The Principal.
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Early life and education
Demetriades was born in Perth, the youngest of four sisters. Her father emigrated from Cyprus in 1969 and worked as a Greek teacher and translator; her mother is an artist. Her father was a teacher and journalist who held several offices in Perth's organised Cypriot community after 1974. She grew up in Perth's Greek Cypriot community, and in the early 2000s she and Katina Pitsonis taught Cypriot and Greek dance to a group of 35 children through the Cyprus Community of Western Australia's Zephyrus Cyprus Dance Group. Historian Anastasios Tamis notes that she "later built a remarkable career as an actor".
She studied dance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and communications and cultural studies at Curtin University, before graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) with a Bachelor of Dramatic Art (Acting) in 2006.
Career
Stage
After NIDA, Demetriades played Anna in Winter at Griffin Theatre Company, directed by Nick Marchand, and the title role in Helly's Magic Cup for the State Theatre Company of South Australia.
Demetriades played Marina in Bell Shakespeare's 2009 production of Pericles, directed by John Bell. Reviewing the production for the Herald Sun, Kate Herbert singled out the reunion between Marina and Pericles, played by Marcus Graham, as its most moving scene, and praised Demetriades' portrayal of Marina. Demetriades received a nomination for Female Supporting Performer at the 2009 Green Room Awards for the role.
In 2010, she played Viola in Bell Shakespeare's Australian touring production of Twelfth Night, directed by Lee Lewis. Reviewing the production for ArtsHub, Sarah Adams described Demetriades as a rising talent, highlighting her charisma and intelligence in the role. She was nominated for Best Actress at the 2010 Green Room Awards for her performance.
In 2012 she played Eliza Doolittle in Sydney Theatre Company's Pygmalion, directed by Peter Evans. Reviewing the production for Australian Stage, Augusta Supple wrote that she made Eliza's transformation from urchin to lady "with great finesse", while Diana Simmonds of StageNoise wrote that "the fortuitous casting of Andrea Demetriades is a winner" and singled out "the exquisitely effective Demetriades". She returned to the company in Perplex (2014) and as Raina in Arms and the Man (2015), and played Hannah Jarvis in Arcadia in 2016. Reviewing Arms and the Man for ArtsHub, Glen Falkenstein found her "fancifully fun as the young romantic" and wrote that she "carries the scenes", pulling off the comic role as well as she had Shaw's more dramatic Eliza. In Arcadia, Stage Whispers reviewer Sally Alrich-Smythe called her "the stand-out on the stage", adding: "Wherever the text offered tongue-in-cheek, Demetriades shone."
Between her Sydney Theatre Company roles she worked with Belvoir. In late 2013 she played Eliza in Neil Armfield's revival of The Book of Everything, Richard Tulloch's adaptation of Guus Kuijer's novel, presented by Belvoir and Kim Carpenter's Theatre of Image at Melbourne Theatre Company's Southbank Theatre. In 2014 she played Antigone opposite Peter Carroll's Oedipus in Adena Jacobs's Oedipus Rex in Belvoir's Downstairs Theatre, a reimagining of the blind king's last days that Jacobs created in collaboration with the two actors. Critic John Shand wrote that "Demetriades' Antigone is by turns practical, caring, teasing and cruel", and Lynne Lancaster of ArtsHub described "the darkly beautiful Andrea Demetriades". In 2015 she appeared with Benedict Hardie and Xavier Samuel in The Dog/The Cat, a double bill of short plays by Brendan Cowell and Lally Katz directed by Ralph Myers in Belvoir's Downstairs Theatre; she played Miracle, an academic courted by two men at a dog park, in Cowell's The Dog, and a newly separated woman sharing custody of the family cat with her ex-husband in Katz's The Cat. Australian Stage wrote that the trio performed with "an assured charm", AussieTheatre's Cassie Tongue found the cast "each instantly likable", and John Pollak of the Sydney Arts Guide wrote that "Andrea Demetriades is also darn good", adding: "The scene in which Demetriades seduces her lover in front of the Cat is wonderful." When Belvoir revived the double bill in 2017, Sheridan Harbridge took over the roles Demetriades had originated.
Television
Demetriades made her television debut in All Saints in 2009. Her breakthrough came as Lina Badir, a Palestinian-Australian Muslim solicitor in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, in the ABC legal drama Crownies (2011), a role she played across 22 episodes and reprised in its spin-off Janet King across three series from 2014 to 2017. Reviewing the first series of Janet King for Inside Story, Jane Goodall noted that the junior prosecutors' roles had been reworked, giving the actresses who played them, including Demetriades, more room to develop their characters.
She played Hafa Habeb in the SBS miniseries The Principal (2015), whose cast won the Equity Ensemble Award for a miniseries or telemovie. In 2017 she played Angela, a Turkish sex worker, opposite Alex Dimitriades in the ABC adaptation of Elliot Perlman's novel Seven Types of Ambiguity; the role earned her an AACTA Award nomination for Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama, and the cast won the 2018 Equity Ensemble Award. The same year she played Dr Lou Tannis in the ABC medical drama Pulse, working with director Ana Kokkinos, who described her as "an explosive actress" and "a major talent". In 2018 she was cast in Murder, a pilot for CBS and Warner Bros.
She played Romi in the second series of the ABC comedy Squinters (2019), and went on to roles in The Commons (2019), the Foxtel drama The End (2020) and the American psychological thriller Reckoning (2020). In the 2021 SBS heist drama The Unusual Suspects she played Martha Drewe, a high-flying American chief executive, alongside Miranda Otto; filming took place under COVID-19 restrictions, with early rehearsals conducted behind shields.
Her 2023 roles included Nikki Santos in the Seven Network miniseries The Claremont Murders, which was nominated for Best Miniseries or Telemovie at the 2024 Logie Awards,
Marianne Cracksworth in the Disney+ series The Artful Dodger and Dee in the ABC revival of Mother and Son.
Since 2024 she has played Daisy Dixon in Return to Paradise, an ABC and BBC One spin-off of Death in Paradise filmed in the Illawarra. The series won the Logie Award for Best Drama Program in 2025, and its second series premiered in late 2025. She has since appeared as Jen in NCIS: Sydney (2025), Dr Bennett in The Last Anniversary (2025), Gia Pandit in the third series of The Twelve (2025) and Kat Pappas in the second series of High Country (2026).
Film
After early short films, Demetriades made her feature debut in 2013 with roles in Nerve.
In 2013, Demetriades appeared as Kate in Around the Block, an Australian drama film written and directed by Sarah Spillane. The film starred Christina Ricci and Hunter Page-Lochard, with a supporting cast that included Ruby Rose, Jack Thompson and Demetriades. Her character was a former romantic partner of Ricci's character, Dino Chalmers.
Her first leading film role came as Eve, a Lebanese Muslim lawyer who falls for a Greek Orthodox schoolteacher, in Peter Andrikidis's romantic comedy Alex & Eve (2015), co-starring Richard Brancatisano. Andrikidis spent six months casting the part before choosing her, and called her "truly an amazingly gifted actor; world class". Reviewing the film in 2017, American critic Dwight Brown wrote that "the leads, Brancatisano and Demetriades, give performances that are suitably enticing".
Demetriades also co-directed the short film Latte e Miele (Milk and Honey) with actor Louisa Mignone, with whom she developed the concept; Mignone wrote the screenplay, and the pair starred as two Italian sisters who emigrate to rural Australia in the early 1950s after marrying men by proxy. Funded through a Pozible campaign and Metro Screen's First Breaks program, it screened at the Greek Film Festival in 2016.She later played Jenny in Shannon Murphy's Babyteeth (2019) and Clara in the anthology horror film Dark Whispers Volume 1 (2019).
Demetriades is listed among the cast of Fangs, a black comedy written and directed by Lucy McKendrick and starring Joel Edgerton and Toni Collette.
Filmography
Film
The film and short-film credits through 2019 are listed in Demetriades' professional acting resume.
Television
The television roles are documented in Demetriades' Showcast acting credits, which list production years as well as some later broadcast dates.
