Frances McDormand
Birthdate: Jun 23, 1957
Birthplace: Gibson City, Illinois, USA
Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She earned a BA in theater from Bethany College in 1979 and an MFA from Yale University in 1982. Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple (1984), in which she worked with filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Coen and his brother, Ethan Coen, in their films.
McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy, and in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award six times - Supporting in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), and Lead in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020), winning the Oscar for the latter three. She also won a Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of "Nomadland." Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, she dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the quintessential Minnesota Scandinavian, in Fargo (1996).
McDormand and Coen adopted a son, Pedro McDormand Coen, who was born in Paraguay, in 1994. They live in New York.
Gallery
Filmography
actor
Previous (36)
- 2023 | Women Talking
Women Talking
Do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. In 2010, the women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith.
- 2021 | The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth
A Scottish lord becomes convinced by a trio of witches that he will become the next King of Scotland, and his ambitious wife supports him in his plans of seizing power.
- 2021 | The French DispatchasLucinda Krementz
The French Dispatch
A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in "The French Dispatch Magazine".
- 2021 | Fargo 25th Anniversary
Fargo 25th Anniversary
Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.
- 2021 |
- 2018 |
- 2017 | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriasMildred
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder when they fail to catch the culprit.
- 2015 | The Good Dinosaur
The Good Dinosaur
In a world where dinosaurs and humans live side-by-side, an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend.
- 2014 | Every Secret Thing
- 2013 | Rebels with a Cause
- 2012 | Moonrise Kingdomas Mrs. Bishop
- 2012 | Promised Land
- 2011 | This Must Be the Place
- 2008 | Burn After Reading
- 2008 | Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
- 2006 | Friends with Money
- 2005 | North Country
- 2005 | Æon Flux
- 2002 | City by the Sea
- 2002 | Laurel Canyon
- 2001 | The Man Who Wasn't There
- 2000 | Almost Famousas Elaine Miller
- 2000 | Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
- 2000 | Wonder Boys
- 1998 | Johnny Skidmarks
- 1998 | Madeline
- 1998 | Talk of Angels
- 1997 | Paradise Road
- 1996 | Fargoas Marge Gunderson
- 1995 | Beyond Rangoon
- 1990 | Darkman
- 1990 | Hidden Agenda
- 1989 | Chattahoochee
- 1988 | Mississippi Burning
- 1988 | Mississippi BurningasMrs. Pell
Mississippi Burning
Two F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.
- 1984 | Blood Simple
