Amy Madigan

She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a woman in a difficult marriage in Twice in a Lifetime (1985), and won 40 years later for her performance as the villainous Aunt Gladys in Weapons (2025)—the longest gap between two nominations for an actress. Her other film credits include Love Letters (1984), Alamo Bay (1985), Nowhere to Hide (1987), Uncle Buck (1989), Field of Dreams (1989), Female Perversions (1996), Pollock (2000), Gone Baby Gone (2007), and The Hunt (2020). On television, Madigan portrayed Sarah Weddington in the television film Roe vs. Wade (1989), for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. She took on roles in the HBO series Carnivàle (2003–2005), Grey's Anatomy (2008–2009), and Fringe (2009). On stage, she has acted in the Off-Broadway production of The Lucky Spot (1987), for which she was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play, and a 1992 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in the role of Stella Kowalski.

Amy Madigan studied at Marquette University, Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and Roosevelt University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is acting, film production and music. Distinctions recorded are Theatre World Award, Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Amy Marie Madigan was born September 11, 1950, in Chicago to Dolores (née Hanlon), an administrative assistant and amateur actress who performed in community theatre, and John J. Madigan, a journalist who worked for Newsweek and provided political commentary on programs including Meet the Press and Face the Nation. Her father interviewed a range of political figures from Richard Nixon to Martin Luther King Jr., and hosted his own show with WBBM (AM). She is Catholic and third-generation Irish American. She has two brothers, Jack and Jim. During high school, Amy Madigan performed in school plays. She attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she earned a B.A. degree in philosophy in 1972. She moved to Los Angeles in 1974, later studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

In 1990, Madigan starred opposite Paula Kelly in Stevie Wants to Play the Blues by Eduardo Machado, for which she won a Drama-Logue Award. In 1991, she starred opposite Olympia Dukakis in the Emmy-nominated television film Lucky Day. She made her Broadway debut in the role of Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1992, opposite Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin, and was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Debut Performance. Madigan next appeared opposite Timothy Hutton in The Dark Half (1993), a film adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name, directed by George A. Romero. In 1996, she and Harris produced and starred in the television film Riders of the Purple Sage. She then starred with Tilda Swinton in Female Perversions. In 1997, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female for her performance as Brett Armerson in the film Loved. In 2000, she portrayed Peggy Guggenheim in the film Pollock, starring her husband, which he also directed and produced. In 2002 she had a supporting role as Reggie Fluty, the officer who responded to aid the dying Matthew Shepard in the television film The Laramie Project. In 2003–2005, Madigan had the supporting role of Iris Crowe/Irina, sister of villain Justin Crowe, in HBO's series Carnivále. In 2005, she starred as Lori Lansky in Winter Passing, directed by Adam Rapp. In 2006, she had a supporting role as Patricia Carver, a CIA headquarters analyst, in the Emmy-winning television film The Path to 9/11. In 2007, she played the sister-in-law of Helene (Amy Ryan), Beatrice "Bea" McCready, in the film Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck. In 2008, Madigan played Dr. Katharine Wyatt on several episodes of ABC's medical drama series Grey's Anatomy. She then guest-starred on TNT's crime drama series Saving Grace as Gretchen Lagardi. In a 2015 interview with Madigan for The Los Angeles Times, journalist Susan King said, "Madigan, like so many actresses older than 50, has had difficulties finding meaningful roles." Madigan opined about her career and the lack of roles for actresses her age, saying, "My husband works a lot more than I do... You know what the situation is. The reality is you have to make your peace with it sometimes even when you have a depressive day, which I still have."

In 2011, she guest-starred in the final episode of TNT's drama series Memphis Beat. Madigan returned to theater in 2015, directing a stage production of Off the King's Road at the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles. In 2016, she starred as Halie in the revival of Sam Shepard's play Buried Child for The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan, New York. It moved to the West End's Trafalgar Studios in London in November 2016, where Madigan reprised her role. In 2018, she had a supporting role in the independent drama American Woman opposite Sienna Miller, followed by a supporting role in Scott Cooper's horror film Antlers (2021), playing a school principal in a small Oregon town plagued by a supernatural entity. In 2024, Madigan starred as Judge Motley in the independent drama Bull Street, which premiered as the opening night film at the Sarasota Film Festival in Sarasota, Florida. In a 2025 interview with The New York Times, Madigan told Kyle Buchanan, "Opportunities [as an older actress] are less and you just hope that something finds you so you can find it... I don't take it for granted, because you can go up and then you can go all the way down, as we know." In 2025, she had a pivotal role in Zach Cregger's horror mystery film Weapons, playing the eccentric and mysterious Gladys, the great-aunt of a young boy whose classmates go missing in his small community. Madigan's performance in Weapons earned her great critical acclaim and awards recognition, including the Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress and New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. On March 15, 2026, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; the 40-year gap between this nomination and her previous nomination for Twice in a Lifetime set the record for longest gap between Oscar nominations for an actress. Madigan will appear in the upcoming Netflix limited series adaptation All the Sinners Bleed, based on the S. A. Cosby novel of the same name, and James Ponsoldt's upcoming psychological thriller film Sponsor.

Madigan married actor Ed Harris on November 21, 1983. They have a daughter. Madigan toured the United States performing as a vocalist in several rock bands through the 1970s before moving to Los Angeles. She also performed as a solo singer and pianist in Dallas in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Recounting her career as a singer in the 2015 interview with Susan King, Madigan said: "I had been working in [music] for a very long time. I am not a writer, so I wasn't generating my own personal material. I just felt myself kind of hitting the same brick wall... I miss music every day. It's very visceral and emotional. You can pack something into three minutes, and you can't do that in any other medium." Since 2016, Madigan has served on the board of trustees at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Madigan and Harris lost their Malibu home in the Palisades Fire of January 2025.