MICHELLE WILLIAMS
Name: Michelle Ingrid Williams
Born: 9 September 1980 Kalispell, Montana, United States
Michelle Ingrid Williams (born September 9, 1980) is an Academy Award-nominated
American actress. Williams broke into stardom on the teen series Dawson's Creek
and later graduated to full-length features, such as Brokeback Mountain, for
which she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Williams, the eldest of five children, was born in Kalispell, Montana, the
daughter of Carla, a homemaker, and Larry Williams, a well-known stock and
commodities trader currently living in Australia, while fighting extradition to
the United States on allegations of U.S. Federal Income Tax evasion which he
disputes.
When Williams was nine, her family moved to San Diego, California, and, at an
early age, she became interested in acting. At age fifteen, faced with her
parents' disapproval, she emancipated herself from them and, after completing
the ninth grade at the Upper School of Santa Fe Christian Schools, in Solana
Beach, California, she left school in order to pursue her acting career in
Dawson's Creek.
In 1997, at age sixteen, she won the Robbins World Cup Trading Championship, as
her father had done ten years earlier. She turned $10,000 into $110,000 over
the course of a year and that gain (as of 2006) is the fourth highest in the
history of that competition (her father's being the highest).
Williams's career began in television, appearing in programs such as the 1990's
version of Lassie, Baywatch, and Home Improvement. Williams' first film role was
in the motion picture Species. Soon after, she won additional roles, including
the Jessica Lange-Michelle Pfeiffer film A Thousand Acres and the 1998 movie
Halloween: H20. Williams's star profile rose considerably when in 1998, she was
cast as one of the lead characters on the WB show Dawson's Creek. She would play
Jen Lindley for all six seasons of the successful show.
During and after Dawson's Creek's run, Williams made strong turns in several
notable indie films. Her first starring role was as Arlene in the film Dick, a
satire of the Watergate scandal, opposite Kirsten Dunst. She starred opposite
Christina Ricci in Prozac Nation, and also appeared in the HBO film If These
Walls Could Talk 2, and several acclaimed indie pictures such as The United
States of Leland, Me Without You, and Imaginary Heroes with Sigourney Weaver.
For her performance in The Station Agent, Williams along with the rest of the
cast received a Screen Actors Guild award nomination for Best Acting Ensemble.
In 2005, critics and audiences took note of Williams's performance in Ang Lee's
Brokeback Mountain. For her performance, she won a Critic's Choice Award and
received Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting
Actress.
Since then, Williams has been cast in several highly anticipated films. In 2006,
she appeared in The Hawk Is Dying, with Paul Giamatti; and in 2007, in The
Hottest State, opposite Ethan Hawke, and in I'm Not There, directed by Todd
Haynes, which also features Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and
Julianne Moore, among others.
Name: Michelle Ingrid Williams
Born: 9 September 1980 Kalispell, Montana, United States
Michelle Ingrid Williams (born September 9, 1980) is an Academy Award-nominated
American actress. Williams broke into stardom on the teen series Dawson's Creek
and later graduated to full-length features, such as Brokeback Mountain, for
which she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Williams, the eldest of five children, was born in Kalispell, Montana, the
daughter of Carla, a homemaker, and Larry Williams, a well-known stock and
commodities trader currently living in Australia, while fighting extradition to
the United States on allegations of U.S. Federal Income Tax evasion which he
disputes.
When Williams was nine, her family moved to San Diego, California, and, at an
early age, she became interested in acting. At age fifteen, faced with her
parents' disapproval, she emancipated herself from them and, after completing
the ninth grade at the Upper School of Santa Fe Christian Schools, in Solana
Beach, California, she left school in order to pursue her acting career in
Dawson's Creek.
In 1997, at age sixteen, she won the Robbins World Cup Trading Championship, as
her father had done ten years earlier. She turned $10,000 into $110,000 over
the course of a year and that gain (as of 2006) is the fourth highest in the
history of that competition (her father's being the highest).
Williams's career began in television, appearing in programs such as the 1990's
version of Lassie, Baywatch, and Home Improvement. Williams' first film role was
in the motion picture Species. Soon after, she won additional roles, including
the Jessica Lange-Michelle Pfeiffer film A Thousand Acres and the 1998 movie
Halloween: H20. Williams's star profile rose considerably when in 1998, she was
cast as one of the lead characters on the WB show Dawson's Creek. She would play
Jen Lindley for all six seasons of the successful show.
During and after Dawson's Creek's run, Williams made strong turns in several
notable indie films. Her first starring role was as Arlene in the film Dick, a
satire of the Watergate scandal, opposite Kirsten Dunst. She starred opposite
Christina Ricci in Prozac Nation, and also appeared in the HBO film If These
Walls Could Talk 2, and several acclaimed indie pictures such as The United
States of Leland, Me Without You, and Imaginary Heroes with Sigourney Weaver.
For her performance in The Station Agent, Williams along with the rest of the
cast received a Screen Actors Guild award nomination for Best Acting Ensemble.
In 2005, critics and audiences took note of Williams's performance in Ang Lee's
Brokeback Mountain. For her performance, she won a Critic's Choice Award and
received Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting
Actress.
Since then, Williams has been cast in several highly anticipated films. In 2006,
she appeared in The Hawk Is Dying, with Paul Giamatti; and in 2007, in The
Hottest State, opposite Ethan Hawke, and in I'm Not There, directed by Todd
Haynes, which also features Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and
Julianne Moore, among others.