Judy Davis
Judy Davis | |
---|---|
Born | Judith Davis 23 April 1955 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 both screen and stage, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Frequent collaborator Woody Allen described her as "one of the most exciting actresses in the world".[1] Davis has received numerous accolades, including nine AACTA Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards.
After graduating from the
Davis won three Primetime Emmy Awards for starring in the television film Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995), and the miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) and The Starter Wife (2007). Her subsequent films include Children of the Revolution (1996), Celebrity (1998), Marie Antoinette (2006), The Eye of the Storm (2011), To Rome with Love (2012), The Dressmaker (2015), and Nitram (2021).
Early life
Davis was born in
Career
Screen
1970s
After making her feature film debut in the buddy comedy
1980s
Her success continued with lead roles in the Australian New Wave films Winter of Our Dreams (1981), as a waif-like heroin addict; the drama Heatwave (1982), as a radical Sydney tenant organizer; and the thriller Hoodwink (1981), as a sexually-repressed clergyman's wife.[5] Of her performance in Winter of Our Dreams, Roger Ebert wrote that: "Davis brought a kind of wiry, feisty intelligence to My 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 of
She was cast as Adela Quested in David Lean's final film A Passage to India (1984), an adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel, and was nominated for the Academy 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.[9] 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."[10]
She returned to
Her final film of the decade, the Australian thriller Georgia (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.
1990s
Davis had a cameo in
She returned to E. M. Forster territory in Where Angels Fear to Tread and won an Independent Spirit Award for her work as mannish woman author George Sand in Impromptu, a romantic period drama with Hugh Grant as her consumptive lover, Frédéric Chopin. Davis was especially lauded for her performance as Sand, and Hal Hinson of The 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."[15]
She earned an Emmy nomination and her first Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of a real-life Second World War heroine Mary Lindell in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation One Against the Wind. Adrian Turner of Radio 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 in A Passage to India."[16]
Cast in Woody Allen's
She next co-starred with
Much of her work in the late 90s was for television, gaining a collection of
2000s
Davis earned a second Emmy for her portrayal of
In film, she continued to earn good notices for her supporting roles in Swimming Upstream (2003), as a working-class mother, and in the films The Break-Up (2006) and Marie-Antoinette.
2010s
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 in The Eye of the Storm (2011), an adaptation of Patrick White's novel 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 his To Rome with Love.
Davis co-starred with
In 2017, Davis received a
2020s
In 2020 she reunited with
Stage
Davis's stage work has been mostly confined to Australia. Early in her career, she played
In 2004, she starred in and co-directed
In 2011, she portrayed the role of fading actress Irina Arkadina in
Acting credits and accolades
Davis has received numerous accolades including nine
She has won
For her work on television, Davis won
See also
Notes
- ^ As of 2023, only Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger, Margot Robbie and Geoffrey Rush have achieved this feat since Davis.
- ^ As of 2023, twelve Australian women have been nominated for Academy Awards for acting. See the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress sections of List of Australian Academy Award winners and nominees for more information.
References
- ^ Multiple sources:
- ISBN 9781408882160.
- "Judy Davis in the Eye of the Storm". Asia Pacific Screen Academy. 2011. Archived from the original on 31 August 2021. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- Powers, John (3 December 2009). "Judy Davis, Inspiring 'Brilliant Career's 30 Years Later [sic]". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ Maslin, Janet (22 February 1980). "New Face: Judy Davis Don't Call Her Sybylla; A Last-Minute Replacement 'I'm Not Good at Reading Scripts' Elizabeth Swados at Club". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ Rovi, Hal Erickson. "Judy Davis Biography". TV Squad. Archived from the original on 1 June 2020. Retrieved 10 October 2010.
- ^ a b c Ryan Gilbey (25 April 2013). "Judy Davis: 'I never wanted celebrity'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2013.
- ^ a b "Judy Davis in Oscar Nominees". The Canberra Times. 8 February 1985. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ^ Maslin, Janet (6 October 1979). "Film: Australian 'Brilliant Career' by Gillian Armstrong:The Cast". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "Winter of Our Dreams movie review (1983) | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ "Variety review". Archived from the original on 29 February 2008. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
- ^ Allanasio, Paul (18 January 1985). "Oh, So Tasteful a Passage". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ "Pauline Kael". geocities.ws. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ "Judy Davis wins U.S. film award". The Canberra Times. 12 January 1989. p. 3. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ^ a b c Wuntch, Phillip (12 April 1994). "Intelligence as well as wit". The Canberra Times. p. 15. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ^ Koltnow, Barry (25 September 1994). "Judy Davis writes her own script". The Canberra Times. p. 25. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ^ Hinson, Hary (3 May 1991). "'Impromptu' Review". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 December 2018.[dead link]
- ^ Turner, Adrian (2018). "Review: 'One Against the Wind - review'". Radio Times. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
- ^ Canby, Vincent (18 September 1992). "Review/Film -- Husbands and Wives; Fact? Fiction? It Doesn't Matter". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
- ^ McCarthy, Todd (26 August 1992). "Review: 'Husbands and Wives'". Variety. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (11 March 1994). "The Ref". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 4 October 1999.
- ^ Travers, Peter. "The Ref". Rolling Stone.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ "ER, Frasier success outshines dull ramblings by Emmy host". The Canberra Times. 12 September 1995. p. 8. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ^ Bernard Weinraub (10 December 2000). "The Rewards And the Risks of Playing an Icon". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
- ^ Frater, Patrick (9 December 2015). "'Mad Max,' 'Dressmaker' Split Australia's AACTA Awards". Variety. Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ^ "Screening at TIFF Tuesday, Sept. 15: The Dressmaker, Room, Sleeping Giant". The Star. Toronto. 14 September 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
- ^ "Toronto Film Review: 'The Dressmaker'". 15 September 2015. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
- ^ Hale, Mike (19 August 2018). "The New York Times: 'Mystery Road' TV Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
- ^ Denise Petski (14 January 2019). "'Ratched': Sharon Stone, Cynthia Nixon Among 10 Cast in Ryan Murphy's Netflix Series". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
- ^ Allen, Paul Stephen Barry (obituary) Archived 4 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine The Guardian, London, 9 November 2000
- ^ Fitzgerald, Michael The Restoration of Judy at Time Magazine, 24 April 2004
- ^ Kerry O'Brien (9 August 1999). "Judy Davies takes on directing". ABC 7.30 report. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
- ^ "Society of West End Theatre Awards 1982" Archived 29 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine at West End Theatre.com
- ^ "REVIEW: Espionage Meets Physics in Lantern Theater's Hapgood, But No Sparks Fly". Philadelphia Magazine. 13 September 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ Chai, Paul (20 June 2011). "The Seagull". Variety. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
External links
- Judy Davis at The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia
- Judy Davis at IMDb
- Judy Davis at the TCM Movie Database
- Judy Davis at AllMovie