Catherine acted with the St. Martin's Youth Company in Melbourne for two years before going to NIDA in 1983. She graduated in 1985, taking a major role in the movies 'The Right Hand Man' and 'My Brother Tom' while still studying. Since then she's had lead roles in Weekend With Kate - opposite Colin Friels, with an AFI Award in 1990 to show for it, Struck By Lightning and Redheads, which won her the best supporting actress award at the 1993 Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Japan. Her theatre work has included Angels in America, for which she was nominated for a major award, The Crucible, Crystal Clear, The Imaginary Invalid, Macbeth (2003), It Just Stopped (2006) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (2007). In television, she has had leads in Water Rats, Crashburn and The Girl from Tomorrow - Tomorrow's End. As well as a guest role in The Secret Life of Us in 2001, whilst pregnant with her first child. Since then, she has starred in telemovies Emerald Falls (2008) and Call Me Mum, as well as Channel Ten's police drama Rush and Foxtel's new drama Tangle.