Frances McDormand | |
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Born | Cynthia Ann Smith June 23, 1957 Gibson City, Illinois, U.S. |
Alma mater | |
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Years active | 1982–present |
Works | Full list |
Spouse | |
Children | 1 |
Awards | Full list |
Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. In a career spanning over four decades, she has gained acclaim for her roles in small-budget independent films. McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Additionally, she has received three BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. [1] [2] [3] McDormand's worldwide box office gross exceeds $2.2 billion. [4]
McDormand has been married to Joel Coen of the Coen brothers since 1984. She has appeared in a number of their films, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). McDormand won three Academy Awards for Best Actress for playing a pregnant police chief in Fargo (1996), a grieving mother seeking vengeance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and a widowed nomad in Nomadland (2020). For producing the latter, she was also awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture, making her the first person to win Academy Awards both as producer and performer for the same film. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005). McDormand is the second woman to win Best Actress three times (after Katharine Hepburn), and the seventh performer to win three acting Oscars. [lower-alpha 1]
On television, McDormand produced and starred as the titular protagonist in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), which won her the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. [7] She had previously been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Television Movie for her work in the Showtime film Hidden in America (1996). On stage, McDormand made her Broadway debut in a revival of Awake and Sing! (1984). She went on to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as a troubled single mother in Good People (2011). [8] She was previously nominated for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1988 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire . [9]
McDormand was born Cynthia Ann Smith on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. [10] [11] She was adopted at one and a half years of age by Noreen (Nickelson) and Vernon McDormand and renamed Frances Louise McDormand. [11] Her adoptive mother was a nurse and receptionist while her adoptive father was a Disciples of Christ pastor; both were originally from Canada. [12] McDormand has said that her biological mother—whom she has proudly described, along with herself, as "white trash"—may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's church. [11] [12] She has a sister, Dorothy A. "Dot" McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and chaplain, [13] as well as a brother, Kenneth, both of whom also were adopted by the McDormands, who had no biological children.
Because McDormand's father specialized in restoring congregations, [12] he frequently moved their family, and they lived in several small towns in Illinois, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, [14] before settling in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where McDormand graduated from Monessen High School in 1975. She attended Bethany College in West Virginia, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater in 1979. In 1982, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. She was a roommate of actress Holly Hunter while living in New York City. [15]
McDormand's first professional acting role was in Derek Walcott's play In a Fine Castle also known as The Last Carnival, which was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and performed in Trinidad. In 1984, she made her film debut in Blood Simple , the first film by her husband Joel Coen and brother-in-law Ethan Coen. In 1985, McDormand appeared in Sam Raimi's Crimewave , as well as an episode of Hunter . In 1987, she appeared as eccentric friend Dot in Raising Arizona , starring Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage. In addition to her early film roles, McDormand played Connie Chapman in the fifth season of the television police drama Hill Street Blues , and appeared in a 1986 episode of The Twilight Zone . In 1988, she played Stella Kowalski in a stage production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire , for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. [9] McDormand is an associate member of the experimental theater company The Wooster Group. In 2002, "the game and talented" McDormand performed as Oenone in the Wooster Group's production of an "exhilarating dissection" of Racine's tragedy Phèdre entitled To You, the Birdie!, at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York. [16]
After appearing in several theatrical and television roles during the 1980s, McDormand gradually gained renown and critical acclaim for her dramatic work in film. [17] In 1989, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Mississippi Burning (1988). [18] Cast alongside Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, McDormand was singled out for praise, with Sheila Benson in her review for the Los Angeles Times writing, "Hackman's mastery reaches a peak here, but McDormand soars right with him. And since she is the film's sole voice of morality, it's right that she is so memorable." [19]
In 1990, McDormand teamed again with director Sam Raimi for Darkman , in which she co-starred alongside Liam Neeson. The film was a critical and commercial success, with film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert giving the film "two thumbs up" on the TV program At the Movies . [20] [21] That same year, she appeared in the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing and starred in the political thriller Hidden Agenda alongside Brian Cox, which was met with further critical acclaim, and won the Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. [22] The following year, McDormand appeared alongside Demi Moore and Jeff Daniels in the romantic comedy The Butcher's Wife . In 1992, she co-starred in the television film Crazy in Love with Holly Hunter and Gena Rowlands. In 1993, McDormand co-starred in Robert Altman's ensemble film Short Cuts , based on stories by Raymond Carver. The film was critically acclaimed, with the cast receiving a special Volpi Cup for Best Ensemble at the 50th Venice International Film Festival, as well as a Special Ensemble Award at the 51st Golden Globe Awards. [23]
In 1996, McDormand starred as pregnant police Chief Marge Gunderson in Fargo , written and directed by the Coen brothers. [24] She garnered widespread critical acclaim for her performance, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress, [25] and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. [26] Roger Ebert called Fargo "one of the best films I've ever seen" and asserted that McDormand "should have a lock on an Academy Award nomination with this performance, which is true in every individual moment, and yet slyly, quietly, over the top in its cumulative effect." [27] In 2003, the character of Marge Gunderson as portrayed by McDormand was ranked the 33rd greatest screen hero by AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains. [28] Also in 1996, McDormand played Edward Norton's psychiatrist Dr. Molly Arrington in the legal thriller Primal Fear , and appeared alongside Chris Cooper in the neo-Western mystery film Lone Star .
In 1997, McDormand received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Television Movie for her role as Gus in the television film Hidden in America (1996). [7] That same year, she co-starred alongside Glenn Close in Bruce Beresford's war drama Paradise Road . In 1998, McDormand played the strict but loving nun Miss Clara Clavel in the family film Madeline .
In 2001, McDormand was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of an overbearing mother in Almost Famous (2000). [29] [30] For her role in Wonder Boys (2000), she won Best Supporting Actress from the Florida Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. For her roles in both films, she won the Broadcast Film Critics Association award for Best Supporting Actress. [31] McDormand starred as Billy Bob Thornton's wife Doris Crane in the Coen Brothers' film noir The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). In 2002, she starred alongside Robert De Niro in the crime drama City by the Sea , and as free-spirited record producer Jane in Laurel Canyon , which earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female. [32] The following year, she played Diane Keaton's sister Zoe in the romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give . In 2005, McDormand co-starred alongside Charlize Theron in the true life drama North Country , which earned her Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. [33] That same year, she also appeared alongside Theron in the science fiction action film Æon Flux .
In 2007, McDormand won an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting role in Nicole Holofcener's dark comedy Friends with Money (2006). [34] She also voiced the role of the principal Melanie Upfoot in The Simpsons episode "Girls Just Want to Have Sums", which aired on April 30, 2006. In 2008, McDormand starred in the romantic comedy Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day alongside Amy Adams as governess Guinevere Pettigrew, and the black comedy Burn After Reading , which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. [30]
In 2011, she appeared alongside Sean Penn in This Must Be the Place , and alongside her Burn After Reading co-star John Malkovich in the action movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon , playing the US government's National Intelligence Director Charlotte Mearing. She returned to the stage in the David Lindsay-Abaire play Good People , in a limited engagement on Broadway from February 8, 2011, to May 29, 2011. [35] [36] Her performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. [37] In the animated film Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), McDormand voiced Captain Chantel Dubois and also sang a version of the French song "Non, je ne regrette rien". That same year, she co-starred in Wes Anderson's ensemble film Moonrise Kingdom , and alongside Matt Damon in Promised Land . [38] Although primarily recognized for her roles in independent films she has gained a box office gross of $2.2 billion. helped by her appearances in Dark of the Moon and Europe's Most Wanted. [39]
In November 2014, HBO aired a four-part miniseries based upon the series of short stories by Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge , co-produced by and starring McDormand. [40] For her performance in the title role, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie. [41] With her Emmy win, McDormand became the twelfth actress in history to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting", for competitive Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Award wins in acting categories. As a co-producer on Olive Kitteridge, McDormand also won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series. [7] In 2015, McDormand voiced Momma Ida in the Pixar animated film The Good Dinosaur .
In 2017, McDormand starred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri as Mildred Hayes, a grieving mother who rents three roadside billboards to call attention to her daughter's unsolved rape and murder. Her performance garnered enormous critical acclaim, and she won her second Academy Award for Best Actress (her statuette was stolen briefly following the awards ceremony), [42] the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, [43] the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, [44] and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. [45] During that year's awards season, she drew significant media attention for her feminist provoking acceptance speeches which came with the advent of the Time's Up and Me Too movements. [46]
In 2018, McDormand voiced Interpreter Nelson in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs . The following year, she voiced God in the six-episode Amazon/BBC Studios series Good Omens , starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant.
In 2020, McDormand produced and starred in Chloé Zhao's Nomadland , playing Fern, a nomad in the American West. McDormand received universal acclaim for her performance, winning her third Academy Award for Best Actress and her second BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and earning nominations for the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. As a producer on the film, McDormand also won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Picture. [47] [48] [49] Her wins for Nomadland made her the first person in history to win Academy Awards both as producer and performer for the same film, the second woman in history to win Best Actress three times, [5] and the seventh performer overall to win three competitive Academy Awards in acting categories. [lower-alpha 1] In 2021, McDormand received further critical acclaim for her performances as Lady Macbeth in Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth and Lucinda Krementz in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch . [50]
In 2022, McDormand produced and appeared in Women Talking . The film was met with critical acclaim and was nominated for Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards. [51]
Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has appeared in a wide variety of projects on the screen and stage, portraying various characters for which she has frequently received critical acclaim. [52] [11] [53] Vogue remarked that she is "long considered one of our greatest living performers" and that "she grounds every performance with an innate truthfulness. McDormand makes you believe every person she plays is a flesh-and-blood human who continues living out their life once the cameras stop rolling." [54] In his review of Laurel Canyon (2002), film critic Roger Ebert wrote "In almost all of her roles, McDormand embodies an immediate, present, physical, functioning, living, breathing person as well as any actor ever has, and she plays radically different roles as easily as she walks... How she does it is a mystery, but she does, reinventing herself, role after role. McDormand is ascendant." [55] In his review of Nomadland (2020), film critic Leonard Maltin refers to McDormand as "one of the finest actresses on the planet," stating "because [Fern] is played by McDormand, there is no better way to establish a connection between her and us in the audience. We know she is genuine; there is no artifice here." [56]
McDormand has been married to director Joel Coen since 1984. In 1995, they adopted a son from Paraguay when he was six months old and live in Marin County, California. [57] [58] [59] [60]
McDormand has received numerous accolades, including three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and one Tony Award. She has received three Academy Awards for Best Actress for her performances in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020). For producing the latter, she was also awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture, making her the first person in history to win Academy Awards both as producer and performer for the same film. [5]
She has received eight Academy Award nominations total (six for acting, two for producing), for the following films:
McDormand's most acclaimed films, according to the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, include: [61]
Joel Daniel Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, together known as the Coen brothers, are an American filmmaking duo. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Among their most acclaimed works are Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).
Fargo is a 1996 black comedy crime film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. Frances McDormand stars as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant Minnesota police chief investigating a triple homicide that takes place after a desperate car salesman hires two criminals to kidnap his wife in order to extort a hefty ransom from her wealthy father. The film was an American and British co-production.
The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture is an award presented annually by the Screen Actors Guild. It has been presented since the 1st Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1995 to a female actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year.
The Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture is one of the annual awards given by the International Press Academy. The category has gone through several changes since its inception.
The Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead was one of the annual Independent Spirit Awards to honor an actress who has delivered an outstanding lead performance in an independent film. It was first presented in 1985 with Geraldine Page being the first recipient of the award for her role as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful. It was last presented in 2022 with Taylour Paige being the final recipient of the award for her role in Zola.
Holly Hunter is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ada McGrath in the 1993 drama film The Piano. She earned three additional Academy Award nominations for Broadcast News (1987), The Firm (1993), and Thirteen (2003). She won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for the television films Roe vs. Wade (1989) and The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993). She also starred in the TNT drama series Saving Grace (2007–2010).
Frances McDormand is an American actress and producer who made her film debut in the Coen brothers' neo-noir Blood Simple (1984) and also made her Broadway debut in the revival Awake and Sing! in the same year. In 1985, she starred in the crime drama series Hunter and played a police officer on the procedural drama Hill Street Blues. For her performance as a sheriff's wife in Mississippi Burning (1988), she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the same year, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Stella Kowalski in the revival A Streetcar Named Desire.
Chloé Zhao is a Chinese-born filmmaker. She is known primarily for her work on independent films.
The Triple Crown of Acting is a term used in the American entertainment industry to describe actors who have won a competitive Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award in the acting categories, the highest awards recognized in American film, television, and theater, respectively. The term "Triple Crown" is used in other competitive areas, such as the Triple Crown of Horse Racing.
Molly Solverson is a fictional character in the FX television series Fargo. One of the main characters of the first season, she is portrayed by Allison Tolman, who received critical acclaim for her performance, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, and won a Critics' Choice Television Award for her performance. She appeared as a minor character in season 2, portrayed by Raven Stewart as a child; Tolman also briefly reprised her role in a cameo.
Nomadland is a 2020 American drama film written, produced, edited and directed by Chloé Zhao. Based on the 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder, it stars Frances McDormand as a widow who leaves her life in Nevada to travel around the United States in her van as a nomad. A number of real-life nomads appear as fictionalized versions of themselves, including Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells. David Strathairn also stars in a supporting role.
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century is a 2017 nonfiction book by American journalist Jessica Bruder about the phenomenon of older Americans who, following the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, adopted transient lifestyles traveling around the United States in search of seasonal work (vandwelling).
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a 2021 American historical thriller film written, directed and produced by Joel Coen, based on the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It is the first film directed by one of the Coen brothers without the other's involvement. The film stars Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Bertie Carvel, Alex Hassell, Corey Hawkins, Harry Melling, Kathryn Hunter, and Brendan Gleeson.
Sidney Jeanne Flanigan is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Flanigan made her acting debut with the acclaimed independent drama film Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), for which she received nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.
The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. The ceremony was held on April 25, 2021, rather than its usual late-February date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the ceremony, the AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher, and Steven Soderbergh, and was directed by Glenn Weiss. For the third consecutive year, the ceremony had no official host. In related events, the Academy Scientific and Technical Awards were presented by host Nia DaCosta on February 13, 2021, in a virtual ceremony.
The 74th British Academy Film Awards, also known as the BAFTAs, were held on 10 and 11 April 2021 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2020 and early 2021. Presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, accolades were handed out for the best feature-length film and documentaries of any nationality that were screened at British cinemas in 2020 and early 2021.