. In September 2013, it was announced that O'Donnell had been cast in
Hollyoaks as
Peri Lomax, the youngest child of the newly established Lomax family. Of the family's arrival, executive producer
Bryan Kirkwood commented: "I was conscious of the fact that Ste was languishing on his own with no family around him. I'm eager to bring in a strong female force." On 23 November 2014, it was announced that O'Donnell's character would be involved in a teen pregnancy storyline alongside character
Tom Cunningham (
Ellis Hollins). The storyline was devised as an effort to promote
safe sex. On the storyline, O'Donnell said "Some of the scenes have been hard to tackle because I am still quite young and I've had to do a lot of research for them. I am younger than Peri, as she is just turning 15 and I'm only 14 myself. So I’ve done the research to help with my performances and to find out how teenagers actually do react in these situations." She also said, "When I was first told about the story, I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect, but then I had a lot of meetings about it with the show’s executive producer Bryan Kirkwood, the storyliners and the other producers. They explained it to me and made me feel a lot more comfortable about it. Now I've got into it, I'm very excited about the storyline and I'm really enjoying doing it." For her role as Peri, O'Donnell has been nominated twice in the
Inside Soap Awards in 2014 and 2015. In August 2017, O'Donnell was longlisted for Best Young Actor at the
Inside Soap Awards, however she did not progress to the shortlist. O'Donnell has also been nominated for
Best On-Screen Partnership with Hollins, and was also nominated for
Best Young Performance in 2015 and 2016, the latter of which she won. O'Donnell's character has since developed a relationship with
Juliet Nightingale (
Niamh Blackshaw), for which the pair received a nomination for Best Soap Partnership at the I Talk Telly Awards. In 2025, after 12 years in the role, O'Donnell made the decision to leave
Hollyoaks to pursue other acting projects. Her character was
killed off in a plane crash as part of the soap's 30th anniversary. == Filmography ==