Joan Allen

Joan Allen, an American actress, was born in Rochelle, Illinois, in a regular household confined to her parents Dorothea Marie and James Jefferson Allen and belongs to a mixed culture family where German, English and Scot-Irish are predominant. She completed her education at Rochelle Township High School and higher education at Eastern Illinois University where she performed few plays with John Malkovich. Further, she attended Northern Illinois University and earned a graduate degree with a BFA in the theater. Her career started off with theater and later she jumped on to being a television artist before finally moving to the film industry. She made her debut in the movie Compromising Positions which released in 1985. Before the commencement of her film career, she remained actively involved in Steppenwolf Theatre Company, joined in 1977 on persuasion by John Malkovich.

She won Clarence Derwent Award for her role of Hellen Stott in And a Nightingale Sang. She remained the part of a lot of plays including the award -winning play The Heidi Chronicles. The role of Pat Nixon in Nixon (1995) made her grab many award nominations that included the Academy Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The nominations list went long after that. She got nominations for The Crucible (1996) and The Contender (2000) for her powerful portrayal of roles of witchcraft and a scandal trapped politician respectively in the movies mentioned earlier. The year 1997 was years of change of a genre for her as she went on to do more of comedy flicks, drama, and Action Thriller. She starred in The Ice Storm, Face/Off, and Pleasantville.

Her first Emmy nomination came from mini-series The Mists of Avalon (2001). The character of Alcoholic lady in the comedy/drama The Upside of Anger earned her much positive recognition. After portraying roles such as prison warden in Death Race and a CIA Department Director in The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and The Bourne Legacy, she returned to Broadway in March 2009. She essayed the role of Katherine Keenan in Michael Jacobs’ play Impressionism at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

She turned to a voiceover artist and lent her voice talents to 2011 video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The World of Promise. She played the role of Deborah, and this project got support from actors across the Hollywood. In 2015, she grabbed a leading role in the ABC drama series, The Family. Though her career went smooth, her personal life went through some turbulence when she divorced Peter Friedman in 2002 and their 12 years of marriage ended. She had a daughter named Sadie in 1994.