CYNTHIA NIXON Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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CYNTHIA NIXON

Name: Cynthia Ellen Nixon                                                                   
Born: 9 April 1966 New York City, New York, United States                                   
                                                                                           
Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is a Tony and Emmy Award-winning                   
American actress who is best known for her portrayal of lawyer Miranda Hobbes in           
the popular HBO comedy-drama Sex and the City (1998–2004).                               
                                                                                           
The native New Yorker began acting at age 12 as the object of a wealthy                     
schoolmate's crush in The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid, a 1979 ABC Afterschool               
Special. She made her feature debut co-staring with Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal       
in Little Darlings (1980). She made her Broadway debut as the bratty Dinah Lord             
in a 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. Alternating between film, TV and               
stage she did projects like the 1982 ABC-movie My Body, My Child, the features             
Prince of the City (1981) and I Am the Cheese (1983) and the 1982 off-Broadway             
productions of John Guare's Lydie Breeze. In 1985 she appeared alongside Jeff               
Daniels in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky at Second Stage Theatre.                             
                                                                                           
Nixon graduated from Hunter College High School, and made theatrical history               
while a freshman at Barnard College in 1984, simultaneously appearing in two hit           
Broadway plays directed by Mike Nichols. She played the daughter of Jeremy                 
Irons and Christine Baranski in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing while portraying a           
teenage runaway who encounters slimy Hollywood types two blocks away in David               
Rabe's Hurlyburly. That year's Oscar-winning Best Picture Amadeus, directed by             
Milos Forman, also featured her in a brief role as Mozart's tearful maid. She               
landed her first major supporting part in a movie as the intelligent girlfriend             
who aids her teenage boyfriend (Christopher Collet) in building a nuclear bomb             
in Marshall Brickman's The Manhattan Project (1986). Nixon was part of the cast             
of the NBC miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan (NBC, 1988) starring Jack Lemmon           
and Kevin Spacey and essayed the daughter of a presidential candidate (Michael             
Murphy) in Tanner '88 (also 1988), Robert Altman's sharply-observed, episodic               
political satire for HBO--she would later reprise the role for the 2004 follow-up           
*Tanner on Tanner.                                                                         
                                                                                           
On stage, Nixon portrayed Juliet in a 1988 New York Shakespeare Festival                   
production of Romeo and Juliet and acted in the workshop production of Wendy               
Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, playing several                 
characters after it came to Broadway in 1989. She replaced Marcia Gay Harden as             
a pill-popping Mormon wife whose husband reveals his homosexuality in Tony                 
Kushner's landmark two-part Angels in America (1994), received a Tony nomination           
for her performance as the headstrong young woman who falls for a mama's boy in             
Indiscretions (Les Parents Terribles) (1996, her sixth Broadway show) and,                 
though she originally lost the part to another actress, eventually took over the           
role of Lala Levy, the aspiring Scarlett O'Hara in the Tony Award-winning The               
Last Night of Ballyhoo (1997). Nixon was also one of the founding members of the           
theatrical troupe The Drama Dept., which included Sarah Jessica Parker, Dylan               
Baker, John Cameron Mitchell and Billy Crudup among its actors, appearing in the           
group's productions of Kingdom on Earth (1996), June Moon and As Bees in Honey             
Drown (both 1997), Hope is the Thing with Feathers (1998), and The Country Club             
(1999).                                                                                     
                                                                                           
Nixon has contributed supporting performances to such varied pictures as Addams             
Family Values (1993), Marvin's Room (1996) and The Out-of-Towners (1999).                   
                                                                                           
She raised her profile significantly as one of the four regulars of HBO's                   
successful comedy Sex and the City (1998-2004), inhabiting her role as the no-nonsense     
lawyer Miranda in support of series star Sarah Jessica Parker. After Emmy                   
nominations as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2002 and               
2003, Nixon took home the trophy in 2004 for the series' final season.                     
                                                                                           
The immense popularity of the series led Nixon to enjoy her first leading role             
in a feature, playing a video artist who falls in love, despite her best efforts           
to avoid commitment, with a bisexual actor who just happens to be dating a gay             
man (her best friend) in Advice From a Caterpillar (2000), as well as starring             
opposite Scott Bakula in the holiday telepic Papa's Angels (2000). In 2002 she             
also landed a stint as Mrs. Piggee in the indie comedy Igby Goes Down, and her             
turn in the theatrical production of Clare Booth Luce's play The Women was                 
captured for PBS's Stage On Screen series.                                                 
                                                                                           
Post-Sex, Nixon did a guest stint on ER in 2005 as a mother who undergoes a                 
tricky procedure to lessen the effects of a debilitating stroke. She followed up           
with a turn as Eleanor Roosevelt for HBO's Warm Springs (2005), which chronicled           
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's quest for a miracle cure for his paralytic illness.             
Nixon earned an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a           
Movie for her performance. She then had a 2005 stint on the FOX hit medical                 
series House as a patient who suffers a seizure and matches wits with Dr. House             
(Hugh Laurie). In 2006, Nixon won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading             
Role (Play) for David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Rabbit Hole.           
                                                                                           
Preparations are already underway for a Sex and the City feature film. HBO is               
currently in negotiations with executive producer Michael Patrick King and the             
cast from the TV series of the same name, including Nixon.