Joan Allen

Allen acted opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in the Nicholas Hytner directed film based on the Arthur Miller 1953 play of the same name.

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly hailed Allen's performance writing, "It’s Joan Allen who carries the weight of the film’s sorrow, eyes glistening with woe as she delivers the heartbreaking confession to her husband".

She received the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

The following year she starred in the drama The Ice Storm directed by Ang Lee, playing an unsatisfied woman who discovers her husband is having an affair with a neighbor.

Allen acted opposite Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Elijah Wood, Christina Ricci, and Tobey Maguire.

The Hollywood Reporter named it her best film performance writing, "Allen is exquisitely contained, embodying the awkward grace and indefinable ache."

Joan Allen (born August 20, 1956) is an American actress.

Known for her work on stage and screen, she has received a Tony Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.

She began her career with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1977, won the 1984 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for And a Nightingale Sang, and won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in Burn This.

She became a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 1977 when John Malkovich asked her to join.

She's been a member ever since.

In 1984, she won a Clarence Derwent Award for her portrayal of Hellen Stott in And a Nightingale Sang.

Allen's work with Steppenwolf has included productions of Three Sisters, Waiting For The Parade, Love Letters, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, and The Wheel.

Allen began her performing career as a stage actress and on television before making her film debut in the movie, Compromising Positions (1985).

Allen's other film roles include Manhunter (1986), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), The Ice Storm (1997), Face/Off (1997), Pleasantville (1998), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Upside of Anger (2005), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Death Race (2008), and The Bourne Legacy (2012).

She has also starred in the Broadway plays The Heidi Chronicles (1988), Impressionism (2009), and The Waverly Gallery (2018).

Allen, the youngest of four children, was born in Rochelle, Illinois, the daughter of Dorothea Marie (née Wirth), a homemaker, and James Jefferson Allen, a gas station owner.

She has an older brother, David, and two older sisters, Mary and Lynn.

Allen attended Rochelle Township High School, and was voted most likely to succeed.

She first attended Eastern Illinois University, performing in a few plays with John Malkovich, who was also a student, and then Northern Illinois University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater.

In 1989, Allen won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut performance in Burn This opposite Malkovich.

She also starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Heidi Chronicles, with Boyd Gaines at the Plymouth Theatre.

The show was met with critical praise, receiving six Tony Award nominations and winning Best Play.

Allen received her second Tony Award nomination for her performance.

In the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, Allen received international recognition for a string of critically acclaimed performances.

She is also a three-time Academy Award nominee, receiving Best Supporting Actress nominations for Nixon (1995) and The Crucible (1996), and a Best Actress nomination for The Contender (2000).

In 1995 she portrayed Former First Lady Pat Nixon acting opposite Anthony Hopkins playing the title role in the Oliver Stone biographical drama Nixon (1995).

Critic Roger Ebert praised Allen's performance writing, "The key supporting performance in the movie is by Joan Allen as Pat Nixon. She emerges as strong-willed and clear-eyed, a truth-teller who sees through Nixon's masks and evasions."

She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

That same year Allen acted teen romantic drama Mad Love (1995).

The following year Allen played Elizabeth Proctor, a woman accused of witchcraft, in The Crucible (1996).

She also had a supporting role in the science fiction action film Face/Off (1997).

In 1998 Allen starred in the Gary Ross directed fantasy comedy-drama Pleasantville (1998).

Allen acted alongside Jeff Daniels, Reese Witherspoon, and Tobey Maguire.

For her performance she won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress.

The film was compared favorably to The Truman Show also released in 1998.

Joe Leydon of Variety wrote, "Allen is equally effective in her subtle transformation from docile Stepford Wife to yearning free spirit".

The following year she acted in It's the Rage (1999) based off the Keith Reddin play of the same name and When the Sky Falls (2000).

Both film received negative reviews with some praise for Allen's performance.

She won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 2015 film Room.