Mari Luz Olier

Mari Luz Olier is an actress who played Matilde in the Spanish version of Sesame Street from 1983 to 1987. She also dubbed the Doozers in the Spanish version of Fraggle Rock

Olier began her career as an actress in 1974, with an episode of TV series Novela, where she played next to veteran actor Manuel Alexandre. In this same year, she also debuted in movies with Antonio Mercero's Don Juan, an adaptation of José Zorrilla's play.

In 1980, Olier began what would become a successful career as a dubbing actress, playing roles in such as Fame, Glory or the re-dubbed version for Anatomy of a murder (1959). She continued giving her voice in further years, although initially only to unnamed characters ("Woman on Trafalgar Square" for An American Werewolf in London; "Girl at Chuck Full O'Nuts" for Escape from New York; "Stillman's girlfriend" for Stripes, all of them in 1981). She would have chance to play named characters from 1982 onwards, in Porky's and in TV series Dynasty (8th season, character Leslie Carrington).

From 1983 to 1987, Olier only appeared in Barrio Sésamo playing Matilde, the owner of the "horchatería".

However, she continued with her work as dubbing actress, with movies such as To Have or To Have Not, Fanny and Alexander (playing Alexander in both the movie and also the spin-off series), Federico Fellini's Amarcord or dubbing Virginia Madsen in Class. She also dubbed Maud Adams in Nairobi, played a teacher in the first Nightmare at Elm St., and reached a recurrent role as Emma Channing for the six first seasons of Falcon Creast, among some of her more recognizable roles as dubber.

In 1987, Olier began working outside her usual dubbing roles for movies and series. She, of course, continued with that occupation (She played many voices for Stephen King's Creepshow 2, and also lots of episodic characters for MacGyver), but she also began working nearer the short-aged audience she was familiar to thanks to her work in Barrio Sésamo. She was one of the main character in cartoon series Maple Town Story and, more important to us, she was the main Doozer for the Spanish-dubbed version of Fraggle Rock.

However, this occupation with cartoons was not her greatest pleasure. She continued with mainstream movies (Catherine O'Hara's role for Beetlejuice or Gina Gershon in Cocktail), TV series (Susan Day in L.A. Law) and re-dubbing of classic movies (Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley in The Bride of Frankenstein - Lanchester does not utter a word in her other role in the movie as "Bride").

Particularly this role as Mary Shelley marked her, as she repeated it on 1990 with Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound (this time dubbing Bridget Fonda). It was a good time for her, as she was getting more and more important roles. She also became one of the usual dubbers for Stockard Channing (Bitter Moon; Six Degrees of Separation) and Kathy Baker (Picket Fences in 1992 and, twelve years later, 13 Going On 30). She also dubbed occasionally Laura Dern or Marg Helgenberger, and played different roles in series E.R.

She also became a dubbing director since 1992, initially only with series such as Picket Fences or Home Improvement in 1992, then in movies such as Threesome (1994), and then as both director and editor, first in series (Boy meets World, 1995) and afterwards in movies such as The Crucible (1996), usually with her own voice as one of the characters (For instance, she dubbed Joan Allen for The Crucible). At the same time, she continued providing voices for some movies and series without directing or editing the dubbing.

She has since directed the dubbing of box office successes such as The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca (1997), Jungle 2 Jungle (1997) or Shine (1999) as well as popular TV series such as The Pauly Shore Show or Malcolm.

At the same time, she has been acting in The Gilmore Girls (as Emily Gilmore), Smallville (as sheriff Nancy Adams) or My Big Fat Greek Wedding (in Lainie Kazan's role). She is one of the usual dubbers for Vanessa Redgrave, specially in TV series Nip/Tuck, and has played Dame Maggie Smith (Professor Minerva McGonagall) in each and any of the installments of the Harry Potter series (She had voice Smith previously in a re-dubbing version of Hot Millions). But these are only some of her more important roles, not at all an exaustive look at her extensive curriculum.

Recently, we've had a chance to watch her face again when she acted as a guest star in one 2004 episode TV series Hospital Central: "Luz Olier", as she was credited, could be seen in the role of Gloria, the mother of Eva Méndez (Alicia Bogo), in the episode "Amor de Madre" (Mother Love). This character (and actress) has only appeared in one episode, although Eva's father (Agustín Méndez, played by Manuel Zarzo) is a recurrent character.

She has since directed both movie Perfect Romance and more recently TV series Criminal Minds, where she plays the character of Kirsten Vangness.