Dianne Wiest

Other film appearances by Wiest include Footloose (1984), Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Radio Days and September (both 1987), The Lost Boys (1987), Bright Lights, Big City (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Little Man Tate (1991), The Birdcage (1996), Practical Magic (1998), Dan in Real Life (2007), Synecdoche, New York (2008), Rabbit Hole (2010), The Mule (2018), Let Them All Talk (2020) and I Care a Lot (2020). She also appeared in the television series Law & Order (2000–2002), the CBS comedy Life in Pieces (2015–2019), and the Hulu comedy Only Murders in the Building (2025).

Dianne Wiest studied at University of Maryland and Nurnberg American High School. The recorded working language is English. Distinctions recorded are Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Theatre World Award, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

• Name — Dianne Wiest • Born — 28 March 1948 • Birth Name — Dianne Evelyn Wiest • Birthplace — Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. • Years Active — 1970–present • Occupation — Actress • Children — 2 • Education — University of Maryland • Awards — Full list

Wiest was born on March 28, 1948, in Kansas City, Missouri. Her mother, Anne Stewart (née Keddie), was a nurse. Her father, Bernard John Wiest, was a college dean and former psychiatric social worker for the U.S. Army. Her parents met in Algiers. Wiest has two brothers, Greg and Don. She attended high school at Nurnberg American High School in Germany. Her ambition was to be a ballet dancer, but she switched her goal to theater during her senior year. Wiest graduated from the University of Maryland in 1969 with a degree in Arts and Sciences.

• Illustration — Wiest at the 1990 Academy Awards Wiest left her theater studies in Maryland after the third term in order to tour with a Shakespearean troupe. Later, she had a supporting role in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Ashes. She also acted at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, playing the title role in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. She was an understudy both off-Broadway and on Broadway, in Kurt Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June in 1970. She made her Broadway debut in Robert Anderson's Solitaire/Double Solitaire, taking over in the role of the daughter in 1971. She landed a four-year job as a member of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in such roles as Emily in Our Town, Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and leading roles in S. Ansky's The Dybbuk, Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths and George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House. She toured the USSR with the Arena Stage. In 1976, Wiest attended the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and starred in leading roles in Amlin Gray's Pirates and Christopher Durang's A History of the American Film. At Joe Papp's Public Theater she took over the lead in Ashes, and played Cassandra in Agamemnon, directed by Andrei Șerban. In 1979, she originated the role of Agnes in Agnes of God in its first production in Waterford, Connecticut. She appeared in two plays by Tina Howe: Museum and The Art of Dining. In the latter, Wiest's performance as the shy and awkward author Elizabeth Barrow Colt won three off-Broadway theater awards: an Obie Award (1980), a Theatre World Award (1979–1980) and the Clarence Derwent Award (1980), given yearly for the most promising performance in New York theatre. On Broadway she appeared in Frankenstein (1981), directed by Tom Moore, portrayed Desdemona in Othello (1982) opposite James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer, and co-starred with John Lithgow in Christopher Durang's romantic screwball comedy Beyond Therapy (1982), directed by John Madden. (She played opposite Lithgow again in the Herbert Ross film Footloose). During the 1980s, she also performed in Hedda Gabler, directed by Lloyd Richards at Yale Repertory Theatre, and in Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska (1984, Manhattan Theatre Club), Lanford Wilson's Serenading Louie (1984), and Janusz Glowacki's Hunting Cockroaches (1987, Manhattan Theater Club). As Wiest became established as a film actress through her work in Woody Allen's films, she was less frequently available for stage roles. However, she did appear onstage during the 1990s, in In the Summer House, Square One, Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl, and Naomi Wallace's One Flea Spare. In 2003, she appeared with Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei in Oscar Wilde's Salome. In 2005, she starred in Kathleen Tolan's Memory House. She also starred in a production of Wendy Wasserstein's final play Third (directed by Daniel Sullivan) at Lincoln Center. Later New York theater roles include performances as Arkadina in an off-Broadway revival of The Seagull (opposite Alan Cumming's Trigorin) and as Kate Keller in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, opposite John Lithgow, Patrick Wilson and Katie Holmes. In 2009, Wiest appeared in the National Memorial Day Concert on the Mall in Washington, D.C. in a dialogue with Katie Holmes celebrating the life of an American veteran seriously wounded in Iraq, José Pequeño. Wiest spent September 2010 as a visiting teacher at Columbia University's Graduate Acting Program, working with a group of 18 first-year MFA Acting students on selected plays by Anton Chekhov and Arthur Miller. In 2016, Wiest took on the role of "Winnie" in The Yale Repertory Theatre's production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. She reprised the role for Theatre for a New Audience in downtown Brooklyn, New York, in the spring of 2017, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2019.

Wiest was in a relationship with her talent agent Sam Cohn for three years in the mid-1980s. She adopted two daughters: Emily and Lily.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1975 — Zalmen: or, The Madness of God — Nina — Television film • 1978 — Great Performances: Out of Our Father's House — Elizabeth Gertrude Stern • 1997 — Road to Avonlea — Lillian Hepworth — 1 episode • 1999 — The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn — Sarah McClellan — Television film • 2000 — The 10th Kingdom — The Evil Queen/Christine White — Miniseries, 5 episodes • 2000–02 — Law & Order — D.A. Nora Lewin — Lead role, 46 episodes • 2001 — Law & Order: Criminal Intent — 1 episode • 2001–02 — Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — 2 episodes • 2004 — The Blackwater Lightship — Lily Devereux Breen — Television film • Category 6: Day of Destruction — Secretary of Energy Shirley Abbott — 2 episodes • 2008–09 — In Treatment — Dr. Gina Toll — Main role, 17 episodes • 2008 — The Return of Jezebel James — Talia Tompkins — 2 episodes • 2011 — Woody Allen: A Documentary — Herself • 2014 — The Blacklist — Ruth Kipling — 1 episode • 2015–19 — Life in Pieces — Joan Short — Main role, 79 episodes • 2021–23 — Mayor of Kingstown — Mariam McLusky — Main role, 19 episodes • 2025 — Only Murders in the Building — Lorraine Coluca — Recurring (season 5), 6 episodes • Elsbeth — Reverend Mother Constance Mary Cabot — 2 episodes Key • Denotes films that have not yet been released

• Year — Title — Role — Venue • 1970 — Happy Birthday, Wanda June — Understudy: Penelope Ryan, Mildred — Edison Theatre • 1971 — Solitaire / Double Solitaire — Daughter — John Golden Theatre • 1977 — Agamemnon — Cassandra — Delacorte Theatre • 1979 — The Art of Dining — Elizabeth Barrow Colt — Joseph Papp Public Theatre • 1981 — Frankenstein — Elizabeth Lavenza — Palace Theatre • Hedda Gabler — Hedda Gabler — Yale Repertory Theatre • 1982 — Othello — Desdemona — Winter Garden Theatre • Beyond Therapy — Prudence — Brooks Atkinson Theatre • Three Sisters — Masha — Manhattan Theatre Club • 1983 — Ivanov — Anna Petrovna — Williamstown Theatre Festival • 1984 — Serenading Louie — Gaby — Second Stage • After the Fall — Maggie — Playhouse 91 • A Kind of Alaska — Deborah — Manhattan Theatre Club • 1987 — Hunting Cockroaches — Anka — Manhattan Theatre Club • 1988 — Les Liaisons Dangereuses — La Marquise de Merteuil — Williamstown Theatre Festival • 1993 — In the Summer House — Gertrude Eastman Cuevas — Vivian Beaumont Theater • 1997 — One Flea Spare — Mrs. Darcy Snelgrave — The Public Theater • 2003 — Salome — Herodias — Ethel Barrymore Theatre • 2005 — Memory House — Maggie — Playwrights Horizons • Third — Laurie Jameson — Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre • 2008–2009 — All My Sons — Kate Keller — Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre • 2008 — The Seagull — Arkadina — CSC Theatre • 2010 — The Forest — Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya • 2011 — The Cherry Orchard — Madame Ranevskaya • 2015 — Rasheeda Speaking — Ileen — The New Group • 2016–2019 — Happy Days — Winnie — Yale Repertory Theatre • Theatre for a New Audience • Mark Taper Forum • 2023 — Scene Partners — Meryl Kowalski — Vineyard Theatre

Her early screen roles include small roles in It's My Turn (credited onscreen as Diane Wiest) and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, both starring Jill Clayburgh in the lead roles. In 1984, she starred in Footloose, as the reverend's wife and Ariel Moore's mother. Under Woody Allen's direction, Wiest won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1987 and Bullets Over Broadway in 1995. She also appeared in three other Woody Allen films: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Radio Days (1987) and September (1987). • Illustration — Wiest (left) in 2011 She followed her first Oscar success with performances in The Lost Boys (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City (1988). She also starred with Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton in Ron Howard's Parenthood (1989), for which she received her second Oscar nomination. Other major film roles include Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990), Jodie Foster's Little Man Tate (1991) and The Birdcage (1996), Mike Nichols's remake of La Cage aux Folles. On television, her performance on the series Road to Avonlea in 1997 brought her her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Dramatic Series. She received another nomination for her performance in the telefilm The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn (1999), co-starring Sidney Poitier. She starred in the television miniseries The 10th Kingdom in 2000. From 2000 to 2002, Wiest portrayed interim District Attorney Nora Lewin in the NBC crime drama Law & Order. She also played the character in two episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the pilot episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Wiest starred alongside Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche in Dan in Real Life (2007) and had a key supporting role in Charlie Kaufman's 2008 film Synecdoche, New York. In 2008, she also appeared as Gabriel Byrne's therapist, Gina Toll, on the HBO television series In Treatment, for which she received her second Emmy Award, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She received another nomination (in the same category) for the second season, in 2009, but did not win. She starred alongside Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole (2010), whom she worked with on Practical Magic. Rabbit Hole debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Wiest also co-starred in Lawrence Kasdan's 2012 comedy Darling Companion, alongside Kevin Kline and Diane Keaton. In 2020, Wiest starred in Steven Soderbergh's drama Let Them All Talk alongside Meryl Streep and Candice Bergen. That same year she also starred opposite Rosamund Pike in the action thriller I Care a Lot. From 2021 to 2023, she starred in the Paramount+ crime thriller series Mayor of Kingstown, and in 2025 it was announced that she would be joining the cast of Only Murders in the Building as the grieving widow of doorman Lester, Lorraine.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1980 — It's My Turn — Gail — Credited as Diane Wiest • 1982 — I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can — Julie Addison • 1983 — Face of Rage — Rebecca Hammil • Independence Day — Nancy Morgan • 1984 — Falling in Love — Isabelle • Footloose — Vi Moore • 1985 — The — Emma • 1986 — Hannah and Her Sisters — Holly • 1987 — Radio Days — Bea • September — Stephanie • The — Lucy Emerson • 1988 — Bright Lights, Big City — Mrs. Conway • 1989 — Parenthood — Helen Buckman • Cookie — Lenore Voltecki • 1990 — Edward Scissorhands — Peg Boggs • 1991 — Little Man Tate — Jane Grierson • 1994 — Bullets Over Broadway — Helen Sinclair • Cops & Robbersons — Helen Robberson • The — Doctor H. Aaron • 1995 — Drunks — Rachel • 1996 — The — Sally Dugan • The — Louise Keeley • 1998 — Practical Magic — Aunt Bridget 'Jet' Owens • The — Diane Booker • 2001 — I Am Sam — Annie Cassell • 2002 — Merci Docteur Rey — Elisabeth Beaumont • 2005 — Robots — Lydia Copperbottom — Voice • 2006 — A — Flori Montiel • 2007 — Dedication — Carol • Dan in Real Life — Nana Burns • 2008 — Passengers — Toni • Synecdoche, New York — Ellen Bascomb / Millicent Weems • 2009 — Rage — Miss Roth • 2010 — Rabbit Hole — Nat • 2011 — The Big Year — Brenda Harris • 2012 — Darling Companion — Penny Alexander • The — Ms. Crudstaff • 2014 — The Humbling — Carol Stapleford • 2015 — Five Nights in Maine — Lucinda • Sisters — Deana Ellis • 2018 — The Mule — Mary Stone • 2020 — I Care a Lot — Jennifer Peterson • Let Them All Talk — Susan • 2022 — My Father's Dragon — Iris the Rhinoceros — Voice • 2024 — Apartment 7A — Minnie Castevet • 2026 — Practical Magic 2 — Aunt Bridget 'Jet' Owens • Closing Night — Diane — Completed