Dubliner's blush strokes on Oscar shortlist

An Irishwoman has been nominated for an Oscar for the sixth time. Michelle Burke from Dublin was nominated for make-up on The Cell.

The film starred Jennifer Lopez as a woman who can see into the minds of people - she is recruited to get inside the mind of a killer.

Speaking from Los Angeles yesterday, Ms Burke described the film as "a dark horse . . . with a great cult following", which hadn't been circulated to members of the Academy. She was surprised at the nomination.

She has won two Oscars already, for make-up on Quest for Fire and Bram Stoker's Dracula. She was also nominated for her work on Cyrano de Bergerac, Clann of Cavebears, and Austin Powers II- the Spy Who Shagged Me.

Ms Burke is the second-eldest of a family of 10 from south Dublin where her father Frank still lives, in Dalkey. "He is my biggest PR agent," she said. After attending Mount Anville school she left Ireland "in the late '70s. I was at the tail end of the last group who left. We couldn't get any work", she said.

She spent time learning French in France and Spanish in Madrid before going to Montreal in Canada, in 1985. She continued from there to Los Angeles, where she became involved with make-up in the film industry, and has been there for 13 years.

She also worked on the films Moll Flanders and Jim Sheridan's Some Mother's Son in this country.

She is working on Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Cameron Crowe. Then she goes to work on a new Spielberg film, Minority Report, also featuring Tom Cruise.