Guide Note

Three-time Oscar-nominee Joan Allen began her career on the stage and won a Tony award for her performance in Burn This in 1988. She has worked with lauded filmmakers Michael Mann, Ang Lee and Oliver Stone over her two decades in cinema.

Fast Facts

1. Born: August 20, 1956
2. Born in Rochelle, Illinois
3. Height: 5'10"
4. Former spouse: Peter Friedman
5. One daughter: Sadie
6. Performed with Brian Cox in both Manhunter and The Bourne Supremacy
7. Has three Oscar nominations

After graduating from Northern Illinois University in 1976, Allen joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where she worked with co-founder Gary Sinise. Though she made her film debut in 1985 in Frank Perry's Compromising Positions, she was more successful on stage in the late 1980s. The year after her Tony Award win, she was nominated for Best Actress again ifor The Heidi Chronicles.

In the 1990s, Allen established herself as a film actress and received Oscar nominations for portraying Pat Nixon in Nixon and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible. She received her third nomination for playing a United States senator caught in a sexual scandal in The Contender.

"Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful even if it was just vicariously." &mdash Joan Allen¹

"Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful even if it was just vicariously." — Joan Allen²

"Almost any film that you do is an opportunity to open you up and make you more aware of an area that you might not be thinking about. That's what is kind of cool, or one of the cool things about this profession." — Joan Allen²