Judy Davis | |
|---|---|
 Davis in 2012 | |
| Born | Judith Davis (1955-04-23)23 April 1955 (age 70) Perth,Western Australia, Australia |
| Education | Curtin University National Institute of Dramatic Art (BFA) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1977–present |
| Works | Full list |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Full list |
Judith Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian actress. In a career spanning over four decades of bothscreen and stage, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Frequent collaboratorWoody Allen described her as "one of the most exciting actresses in the world".[1] She is the most rewarded recipient of theAACTA Award with nine wins and has receivednumerous other accolades, including threePrimetime Emmy Awards, twoBritish Academy Film Awards, and twoGolden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for twoAcademy Awards and anLaurence Olivier Award.
After graduating from theNational Institute of Dramatic Art, she began her career on the stage and had her film debut in 1977. She rose to international attention with her leading role in the period drama filmMy Brilliant Career (1979), winning twoBAFTA Awards. This led to starring roles inHollywood projects, receiving her firstEmmy nomination for the docudramaA Woman Called Golda (1982). She received nominations for theAcademy Award for Best Actress for starring in the historical filmA Passage to India (1984) andBest Supporting Actress for Allen's comedy-dramaHusbands and Wives (1992).
Davis won threePrimetime Emmy Awards for starring in the television filmServing in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995), and the miniseriesLife with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) andThe Starter Wife (2007). Her subsequent films includeChildren of the Revolution (1996),Celebrity (1998),Marie Antoinette (2006),The Eye of the Storm (2011),To Rome with Love (2012),The Dressmaker (2015), andNitram (2021).
Davis was born inPerth, Western Australia, in the suburb of Floreat Park and had a strictCatholic upbringing.[2][3] She was educated atLoreto Convent and theWestern Australian Institute of Technology and graduated from theNational Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Sydney, Australia in 1977.
After making her feature film debut in the buddy comedyHigh Rolling (1977), Davis first came to prominence for her role as Sybylla Melvyn in the coming-of-age sagaMy Brilliant Career (1979),[4] for which she wonBAFTA Awards forBest Actress and Best Newcomer.[5] Davis was particularly praised for her performance;Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times admired her for bringing "an unconventional vigor to every scene she's in, even in a film that's as consistently animated as this one",[6] while Luke Buckmaster, writing forThe Guardian in 2014, commented that Davis gave "a rousing performance as bull-headed protagonist Sybylla Melvyn. The term "once in a lifetime" tends to be slapped around like a bumper sticker, but this meaty role lives up to the accolade."[7]
Her success continued with lead roles in theAustralian New Wave filmsWinter of Our Dreams (1981), as a waif-like heroin addict; the dramaHeatwave (1982), as a radical Sydney tenant organizer; and the thrillerHoodwink (1981), as a sexually repressed clergyman's wife.[5] Of her performance inWinter of Our Dreams,Roger Ebert wrote that: "Davis brought a kind of wiry, feisty intelligence toMy Brilliant Career, playing an Australian farm woman who rather felt she would do things her own way. She's wonderful again this time, in a completely different role as an insecure, distrustful, skinny street waif. [She] performs her movement magnificently.[8]Her international film career began when she played the younger version ofIngrid Bergman'sGolda Meir in the televisiondocudramaA Woman Called Golda (1981), for which she received aPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie nomination. She then played a terrorist based onVanessa Redgrave in the British filmWho Dares Wins (1982).[4][9]
She was cast as Adela Quested inDavid Lean's final filmA Passage to India (1984), an adaptation ofE. M. Forster's novel, and was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Actress.[4]Variety praised Davis for having "the rare gift of being able to look very plain (as the role calls for) at one moment and uncommonly beautiful at another.[10] Likewise,The Washington Post wrote, "With makeup the color of smudged ivory, her pallor enhanced by the off-white linens she wears, Davis is daringly unattractive for a leading lady; that plainness is emphasized in the book. Davis' neuroticism, her way of twitching and thrusting her jaw and looking up hungrily beneath the brim of her straw hat, brings to life the ravenous sexuality beneath Miss Quested's decorous exterior."[11]
She returned toAustralian cinema for her next two films,Kangaroo (1986), as a German-born writer's wife, andHigh Tide (also 1987), as a foot-loose mother attempting to reunite with her teenage daughter who is being raised by the paternal grandmother. Her performance in the latter won her glowing praise.Pauline Kael called Davis "a genius at moods" and wrote, "As one of three backup singers for a touring Elvis imitator, Judy Davis is contemptuous of the cruddy act, contemptuous of herself. The film's emotional suggestiveness makes it almost a primal woman's picture: Judy Davis has been compared with Jeanne Moreau, and that's apt, but she's Moreau without the cultural swank, the high-fashion gloss. She speaks to us more directly."[12] She won additionalAustralian Film Institute Awards for both roles, and aNational Society of Film Critics award forHigh Tide's brief American theatrical run.[13]
Her final film of the decade, the Australian thrillerGeorgia (1988), saw her play dual roles, a mother, Georgia, and her daughter Nina. For her performance, Davis earned another Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actress.
Davis had a cameo inWoody Allen'sAlice (1990), her first appearance in an Allen-directed film. The following year, she was featured inJoel Coen'sBarton Fink,[14] which won thePalme d'Or at theCannes Film Festival, and inDavid Cronenberg'sNaked Lunch, an adaptation of the hallucinogenic novel of the same name.[15]
She returned toE. M. Forster territory inWhere Angels Fear to Tread and won anIndependent Spirit Award for her work as mannish woman authorGeorge Sand inImpromptu, a romantic period drama withHugh Grant as her consumptive lover,Frédéric Chopin. Davis was especially lauded for her performance as Sand, andHal Hinson ofThe Washington Post wrote, "Judy Davis makes her entrances as if she were straddling a cyclone. She doesn't just walk in, she blows in on a torrent of extravagant self-assurance and wild temperament. Sand, who's the locus of this blissfully high-spirited romp about the circle of writers and musicians in 1830s Paris, never does anything halfway; her life is an experiment in full-throttle, passionate immersion, and that's why Davis is the ideal actress for the part. She's the most atmospheric of actors, perhaps the only one around capable of streaking the screen with lightning."[16]
She earned an Emmy nomination and her firstGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of a real-life Second World War heroineMary Lindell in theCBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentationOne Against the Wind. Adrian Turner ofRadio Times noted of her, "Judy Davis, one of the greatest and least "starry" actresses around, plays Lindell and shows the same sensitivity that she brought to her role inA Passage to India."[17]
Cast in Woody Allen'sHusbands and Wives (1992), Davis performed the major role of Sally Simmons, one half of a divorcing couple.[14]Husbands and Wives was well received, and Davis's performance drew high praise.Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times wrote, "Sally must be one of the most endearingly impossible characters Mr. Allen has ever written, and Ms. Davis nearly purloins the film"[18] andTodd McCarthy ofVariety thought Davis had revealed "a whole new side to her personality that has never surfaced onscreen before."[19] For this performance, she earned bothOscar andGolden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
She next co-starred withKevin Spacey in the comedy filmThe Ref (1994), portraying a married couple whose relationship is on the rocks, withDenis Leary playing a thief who counsels their marriage.[14]Roger Ebert called Davis "naturally verbal" and praised her for being able to "develop a manic counterpoint" in her arguments with Spacey "that elevates them to a sort of art form."[20] Similarly,Rolling Stone magazine'sPeter Travers found Davis "combustibly funny, finding nuance even in nonsense."[21] Considered "one of the fiercest film actors around",[22] Davis's other roles have included the mysterious,schizophrenic mother of a teenager in boarding school inOn My Own (1993), the lifelong Australian Communist Party member reacting to the downfall of the Soviet Union inChildren of the Revolution (1996), two more Allen films,Deconstructing Harry (1997) andCelebrity (1998) and a highly-strungWhite House chief of staff inAbsolute Power (1997). After appearing inCelebrity,The Guardian newspaper wrote that Davis "in recent years has succeededDiane Keaton andMia Farrow as Allen's misfit muse."[23]
Much of her work in the late 90s was for television, gaining a collection ofEmmy Award nominations. She won her first Emmy for portraying the woman who gently coaxes a rigid military woman,Glenn Close, out of the closet inServing in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,[24] with subsequent nominations for her repressed Australian outback mother inThe Echo of Thunder (1998), her portrayal ofLillian Hellman inDash and Lilly (1999) and her frigid society matron inA Cooler Climate (1999).
Davis earned a second Emmy for her portrayal ofJudy Garland in the television biographical filmLife with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001).[25] In 2003, she earned another Emmy nomination for her interpretation ofNancy Reagan in the controversial biopicThe Reagans. In 2004 she co-starred withRichard Dreyfuss inCoast to Coast. In July 2006, she received her ninth Emmy nomination for her performance in the television filmA Little Thing Called Murder. Her tenth nomination came in 2007 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in the U.S. miniseriesThe Starter Wife for which she was awarded theEmmy. In August 2007, she appeared oppositeSam Waterston in an episode of ABC's anthology seriesMasters of Science Fiction. She appeared on the TV mini-seriesDiamonds from 2008 to 2009.
In film, she continued to earn good notices for her supporting roles inSwimming Upstream (2003), as a working-class mother, and in the filmsThe Break-Up (2006) andMarie-Antoinette.
Davis appeared as Jill Tankard in a television drama film,Page Eight (2011), for which she was nominated for an Emmy. She played Dorothy de Lascabanes inThe Eye of the Storm (2011), an adaptation of Patrick White'snovel of the same title, for which she won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She also had a major role as Woody Allen's psychiatrist wife in hisTo Rome with Love.
Davis co-starred withHelena Bonham Carter andCallum Keith Rennie inThe Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013). She reprised her role of Jill Tankard inSalting the Battlefield (2014) and costarred withKate Winslet inThe Dressmaker (2015), for which she won an AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress.[26] Although the film received mixed reviews, Davis's supporting performance was lauded by critics: Richard Ouzounian of theToronto Star called her "sublime"[27] and Justin Chang ofVariety wrote, "Davis, whose performance here as a booze-swilling, dementia-addled and infernally sharp-tongued old matriarch is enough of a hoot to make one further wonder what she might have done with the role of Violet Weston inAugust: Osage County, onscreen or onstage."[28]
In 2017, Davis received aPrimetime Emmy nomination for her supporting performance as gossip columnistHedda Hopper inRyan Murphy's anthology television seriesFeud. The following year, Davis co-starred withAaron Pederson in the six-part ABC TV Series,Mystery Road. Davis's performance as the local police sergeant was praised, andThe New York Times wrote, "The thing that really setsMystery Road apart is the actress who signed on to play the outback sergeant Emma James: the great Judy Davis, playing a police officer for the first time in her career and starring in an Australian TV series for the first time in nearly 40 years. Ms. Davis is so firmly identified in the American mind with intense, often neurotic city-dwelling characters that it takes an episode or two to get used to her climbing in and out of a police car in the dusty, empty landscapes, wearing a baggy blue uniform that swallows her tiny frame. It seems at first as if she might not be right for the part, but eventually you see that she's perfect. James is a formidable woman stuck in the middle of nowhere because of the bonds of family and history, and Ms. Davis's preternatural intelligence and tightly capped energy serve her well."[29]
In 2020 she reunited withRyan Murphy portraying Betsy Bucket in the drama seriesRatched.[30] Also that year she acted in theApple TV+ seriesRoar. The following year she acted oppositeCaleb Landry Jones in the psychological drama filmNitram (2021) directed byJustin Kurzel. The film premiered at the2021 Cannes Film Festival where it received positive reviews. Davis later earned theAACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Davis's stage work has been mostly confined to Australia. Early in her career, she playedJuliet oppositeMel Gibson's Romeo. In 1978, she appeared inVisions byLouis Nowra at the Paris Theatre Company inSydney. In 1980, she portrayed French chanteuseEdith Piaf inStephen Barry's production of thePam Gems playPiaf at thePerth Playhouse.[31] She played both Cordelia and the Fool in a 1984 staging ofKing Lear by theNimrod Theatre Company, and also starred in its productions ofStrindberg'sMiss Julie,Chekhov'sThe Bear, Louis Nowra'sInside The Island and, in 1986, the title role ofIbsen'sHedda Gabler for theSydney Theatre Company.
In 2004, she starred in and co-directedHoward Barker's playVictory, as aPuritan woman determined to locate her husband's dismembered corpse.[32] Other stage directorial efforts includeSheridan'sThe School For Scandal andBarrymore byWilliam Luce[33] (all three for the Sydney Theatre Company). She created the role of The Actress inTerry Johnson'sInsignificance at theRoyal Court in London,[34] receiving anOlivier Award nomination, and appeared in a brief 1989 Los Angeles production ofTom Stoppard'sHapgood. Writing forPhiladelphia magazine, David Fox found her "marvelous in the title role, as charismatic and commanding on stage as she is in film."[35]
In 2011, she portrayed the role of fading actress Irina Arkadina inAnton Chekhov'sThe Seagull at Sydney'sBelvoir St Theatre. Paul Chai ofVariety praised her performance as Irina, writing, "Davis manages to instill Irina with not only a diva's haughty air and crafty manipulation but also with the right hint of fragility, as evidenced in her concern about being upstaged by the youthful and beautiful Nina."[36]
Davis has received numerous accolades including nineAACTA Awards, twoBAFTA Awards, threePrimetime Emmy Awards, twoGolden Globe Awards, anIndependent Spirit Award, and aScreen Actors Guild Award. She also received nominations for twoAcademy Awards and aLaurence Olivier Award. She is thefirst Australian to receive Academy Award nominations in both categories ofBest Actress andBest Supporting Actress[a] and the fourth Australian actress to receive an Academy Award nomination.[b]
She has wonBAFTA Awards for bothBest Actress andMost Promising Newcomer for the filmMy Brilliant Career (1979), and later receivedAcademy Award nominations forA Passage to India (1984) andHusbands and Wives (1992). She earned aLaurence Olivier Award for Best Actress nomination for the 1982 London production ofInsignificance.
For her work on television, Davis wonPrimetime Emmy Awards forServing in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995), for playingJudy Garland inLife with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) andThe Starter Wife (2007) and theGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film forLife with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows andOne Against the Wind (1991).
