Eve Hewson is returning to the big screen in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, arriving in theaters June 12. The Irish actor plays former nun Jane, who gets unwillingly dragged into global chaos when her boyfriend, a cybersecurity administrator played by Josh O’Connor, threatens to release classified files proving the existence of aliens.
“Jane has this moral compass. She really has a good heart. She’s believes in the truth, she believes in humanity, and then there’s this version of her that is literally the opposite,” Hewson said in a red carpet interview. “And so I got to do both, which was special.”
The 34-year-old, who previously worked with Spielberg in 2015’s Bridge of Spies, landed the part when the renowned director reached out to her directly after being impressed by her performance in the Irish black comedy series Bad Sisters, which ran for two seasons from 2022 to 2024. Hewson’s other major works include the Netflix miniseries Behind Her Eyes (2021) and The Perfect Couple (2024).
Here’s what else you should know about actor Eve Hewson.
Hewson’s dad is singer Bono
Eve Hewson was born on July 7, 1991, in Dublin, Ireland, to activist Ali Hewson and musician Paul David Hewson, also known as Bono. Growing up in the Dublin suburb of Killiney with her older sister Jordan and younger brothers Elijah and John, Hewson had a relatively normal childhood despite her father’s fame as the frontman of U2.
“The one thing I think prepared me for the career I have now was being able to go to the school down the road, to just live a Dublin life,” she told the Irish Times in February 2021. “And then we would go away to be with dad on tour and we'd have this extraordinary experience. We were able to appreciate both and know that the special, magical time we had with dad wasn't normal life.”
Her birth name is Memphis
While she now just goes by Eve, she was born Memphis Eve Sunnyday Iris Hewson. “Apparently, it was a sunny day when I was born, and with Memphis, it's everything from me having so much hair I resembled Elvis at birth to being conceived there,” she explained to Marie Claire in September 2015.
In middle school, Hewson and her parents decided she would stick to Eve in order to avoid being bullied. Though people close to her still sometimes refer to her as Memphis Eve, her legal name is now Eve Sunnyday Hewson.
Her tutor got her interested in acting
As a teenager, Hewson struggled in school, prompting her parents to hire an after-school tutor, who turned out to be filmmaker Erica Dunton. Then just starting out, Dunton invited her to the set of a short film she was working on, which immediately sparked her interest in acting.
“At one point, Erica let me sit in front of the camera, and she said, ‘Oh, you’ve got some pretty good talent.’ And I was like, ‘I know, yeah, this is what I’m meant to do!’” the actor recalled to Byrdie in November 2024.
But it was more than just a compliment. Dunton went on to write and direct a feature-length independent film, 2008’s The 27 Club, and cast a then 15-year-old Hewson, marking her first professional acting role.
Hewson’s parents wanted her to be an architect
Despite her talent, her parents were initially opposed to her pursuing an acting career. Instead, they became temporarily fixated on the idea of Hewson becoming an architect, though she still has no idea why.
“They didn’t want me to get caught up in the movie business. I mean, look at the music industry, at the movie industry—it is stark,” she told Byrdie. “They were concerned for their 15-year-old child that, all of a sudden, came home and was like: I want to be an actress. They were like, ‘Oh god, no. Please be an architect.’”
With some convincing, Hewson’s parents came around eventually, and she went on to study drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she graduated in 2013. During her time there, she was cast in the 2011 indie film This Must Be the Place, starring Sean Penn and Frances McDormand.
She got her breakout role in The Knick
After appearing in 2013’s Blood Ties and Enough Said, Hewson landed her breakout role in the Cinemax series The Knick in 2014, playing a nurse in 1900s New York City.
When auditioning for the role, she tried to keep her true identity under wraps, but director Stephen Soderbergh quickly discovered she was Bono’s daughter. “But I think when he found out, he was like, ‘OK, I have to meet her,’ because obviously he thought I would be some head wreck,” Hewson later told Rolling Stone in September 2023. “We have bad PR as a collective nepo-baby group.”
Starring alongside Clive Owen and André Holland, she remained a fixture on the show for two seasons until it was canceled in 2015.
She has a problem with authority
After a bad experience on an unnamed film set, Hewson questioned whether or not she wanted to stay in show business. While she ultimately decided to stick it out, she said in a 2024 interview with British GQ that part of this doubt is due to her “massive authority problem,” which she admits can be difficult for an actor.
“I just don’t really like being told what to do,” Hewson said. “I go to therapy, and I’ve learned how to manage it—but I just don’t really like it if I don’t think someone’s making the right decisions, or people think they know what’s better for me.”
She’s a five-time IFTA Award nominee
Hewson is generating early Oscar buzz for her performance in Disclosure Day, but she’s no stranger to acting nominations in her native country. In 2021, she was nominated for her first Irish Film and Television Awards, earning nods for the Rising Star Award as well as Best Lead Actress in a Drama for her performance in Behind Her Eyes. She was later nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress for her turn in Bad Sisters, and earned a nod for Best Lead Actress in a Film for the 2024 musical comedy drama Flora and Son.
Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
