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Joan Allen

Three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen is one of the film world's busiest actresses.

She was most recently seen in Yes, a modern-day, cross-cultural love story for writer/director Sally Potter. In 2005, Allen starred opposite Kevin Costner in The Upside of Anger, for writer/director Mike Binder, and in Off the Map, directed by Campbell Scott. In 2004, she was seen in the blockbuster The Bourne Supremacy, starring opposite Matt Damon. In the same year, she was also seen in The Notebook.

She starred in The Contender, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, an Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Allen starred in Pleasantville, opposite William H. Macy and Jeff Daniels, which earned her several critics' awards. Her role opposite John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in the smash hit film Face/Off earned her critical kudos as well as Blockbuster and MTV Movie Awards. Her emotionally devastating role in The Ice Storm, opposite Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, also earned her several critics' awards.

In 1996, Allen starred in Oliver Stone's Nixon, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also won seven critics association awards, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics awards.

In 1997, Allen received her second consecutive Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

She has appeared in numerous additional feature films including Compromising Positions, Peggy Sue Got Married, Manhunter, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Ethan Frome, Josh and S.A.M., In Country, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Mad Love, It's the Rage and When the Sky Falls.

Allen is also one of the New York theater world's most honored actresses and winner of every major prize for her work on and off-Broadway. She received the Best Actress Tony Award for her performance opposite John Malkovich in Lanford Wilson's Burn This, and was nominated in the same category for the title role in The Heidi Chronicles. Off-Broadway she starred in The Marriage of Bette & Boo (for which she won the Obie Award) and reprised her Steppenwolf Theatre/Joseph Jefferson Awardwinning role in And a Nightingale Sang, for which she received the Clarence Derwent, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards. Off-Broadway, she also starred in Delores and The Heidi Chronicles. An original member of Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Allen starred in its productions of Burn This, Earthly Possessions, Reckless, A Lesson From Aloes (which won her the Joseph Jefferson Award), Balm in Gilead and Of Mice and Men.

Additionally, Allen received an Emmy nomination for The Mists of Avalon, in which she starred opposite Anjelica Huston and Julianna Margulies, for TNT.

She lives in New York City with her daughter, Sadie.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2007.
Read earlier biographies on this page.

Joan Allen Facts

OccupationActress
BirthdayAugust 20, 1956 (67)
SignLeo
BirthplaceRochelle, Illinois, USA
Height5' 10" (1m78)  How tall is Joan Allen compared to you?

Selected Filmography

Room
Searching for Bobby Fischer
Runaway Bride
Toy Story 3
Toy Story of Terror! Compilation
Toy Story That Time Forgot
Small Fry
Hawaiian Vacation
Partysaurus Rex
The Notebook
Continue » Find more details on the Joan Allen Movies page