Hope Davis Biography




Hope Davis
extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Hope Davis
Born March 23, 1964 (1964-03-23) (age 45)
Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.

Hope Davis (born March 23, 1964) is an American actress. She has starred in more than 20 feature films, including About Schmidt, Flatliners, Mumford, American Splendor, The Lodger and Next Stop Wonderland.

Contents

Personal life

Davis, second of three children, was born in Englewood, New Jersey, the daughter of Joan, a librarian, and William Davis, an engineer.1 Davis has described her mother as a "great storyteller" who would take Davis and her siblings to museums or to "something cultural" every Sunday after church.23 Davis graduated in 1982 from Tenafly High School in Tenafly, New Jersey,4 and was a childhood friend of Mira Sorvino, with whom she wrote and acted in backyard plays.

She is married to actor Jon Patrick Walker. They have two children, Georgia (born August 31, 2002) and Mae (born December 30, 2004).

Career

Film

Davis majored in cognitive science at Vassar College, but then made her debut as a dramatic actress in the 1991 #1 hit "Flatliners," starring as William Baldwin's finace. Later, she became the queen of a certain type of independent film such as The Daytrippers (1995) and Next Stop Wonderland (1998). These led her to roles in Hollywood films such as the thriller Arlington Road (1999), and About Schmidt (2002). In 2003, she starred opposite Paul Giamatti in the movie adaptation of the Harvey Pekar comic American Splendor as the comic book version of Pekar's real-life wife, Joyce Brabner. For this role, Davis won the New York Film Critics Circle award and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In 2009, she will play Hillary Rodham Clinton in the HBO film The Special Relationship.5

Stage

Her major stage debut came after she starred for Joel Schmacher (her "Flatliners" director) in the David Mamet play "Speed the Plow" with William Petersen ("CSI") at the Remains Theater in Chicago in 1992. Later, she had lead roles in the New York premiere of Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter in 2000, and in the 2005 audio play "Hope Leaves the Theater", written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. This was a segment of the sound-only production Theater of the New Ear, which debuted at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY. The title actually refers to Hope Davis's character "leaving the theater."

She returned to the stage in 2009, appearing in Broadway's God of Carnage with Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels6, a role which gained her a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play

Television

Davis is co-starring as the bitter and self-deprecating "Mia" with Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne in the second season (2009) of HBO's In Treatment, a dramatic series that tracks the backstory and progress of five patients during their series of psychological therapeutic sessions. Mia is a successful, unmarried malpractice attorney who returns to therapy with Dr. Paul Weston after a 20-year absence because of a lack of stability in her personal life.

Davis also starred in an NBC short-lived drama series called Deadline with actor Oliver Platt in 2001. She played the ex-wife to Platt's character at a newspaper giant.

Filmography

Awards
Preceded by
Diane Lane
for Unfaithful		 NYFCC Award for Best Actress
2003
for American Splendor		 Succeeded by
Imelda Staunton
for Vera Drake

References

  1. ^ Less is really more; Actress Hope Davis prefers to make her mark in low-budget enterprises like 'The Secret Lives of Dentists' and 'American Splendor.'
  2. ^ Tavis Smiley . Archives . Hope Davis . September 26, 2005 | PBS
  3. ^ THEATER; The Fine Edge Between a Role And Real Life - New York Times
  4. ^ Rohan, Virginia. " North Jersey-bred and talented too", The Record (Bergen County), June 18, 2007. Accessed July 5, 2007. "Hope Davis: Class of 1982, Tenafly High School."
  5. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (8 July 2009). "Hope Davis to play Hillary Clinton". The Hollywood Reporter (Nielsen Business Media).
  6. ^ Gandolfini Stars on Broadway in God of Carnage The Associated Press, January 12, 2009

External links