Research in Progress: August 24, 2021
Janet McTeer Career Summary:
Occupational Inheritance:
Social Class
Education
Training: Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Experience:
Stage debut: 1984; aged 23
Broadway Debut:
Film Debut:
Oscar Awards:
Oscar Nominations
Other Awards:
Career Span:
Last film:
Politics:
Marriages:
Death:
McTeer OBE (born 5 August 1961) is an English actress.
In 1997, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, the Olivier Award for Best Actress, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her role as Nora in A Doll’s House (1996–1997).
She also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Mary Jo Walker in the 1999 film Tumbleweeds, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Hubert Page in the 2011 film Albert Nobbs.
McTeer made her professional stage debut in 1984, and was nominated for the 1986 Olivier Award for Best Newcomer for The Grace of Mary Traverse. Her other theatre roles include Yelena in Uncle Vanya (London), Veronique in God of Carnage (London & New York), and the title role in Mary Stuart (London & New York), which won her a second Drama Desk Award in 2009. On television, she starred in the title role of Lynda La Plante’s The Governor (1995–1996), and received an Emmy Award nomination for Into the Storm (2009) and a Golden Globe nomination for The White Queen (2013).
She also appeared opposite Glenn Close in the final season of the drama series Damages (2012).
Her other film roles include Half Moon Street (1986), Hawks (1988), Wuthering Heights (1992), Carrington (1995), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Songcatcher (2000), The Intended (2002), As You Like It (2006), Tideland (2005), Cat Run (2011), The Woman in Black (2012), Maleficent (2014), The Divergent Series (2015–2016), and Me Before You (2016).
McTeer was born in Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and spent her childhood in York. She attended the now defunct Queen Anne Grammar School for Girls, and worked at the Old Starre Inn, at York Minster and at the city’s Theatre Royal.
She performed locally with the Rowntree Players at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, beginning a successful theatrical career with the Royal Exchange Theatre after graduating.
McTeer’s television work includes the BBC production Portrait of a Marriage, an adaptation of Nigel Nicolson’s biography of the same name in which she played Vita Sackville-West, and the popular ITV series The Governor written by Lynda La Plante. She made her screen debut in Half Moon Street, a 1986 film based on a novel by Paul Theroux. In 1991, she appeared in Catherine Cookson’s The Black Velvet Gown, with Bob Peck and Geraldine Somerville; this won the International Emmy award for best drama.
She appeared in the 1992 film version of Wuthering Heights (co-starring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes) and the 1995 film Carrington (which starred Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce) as Vanessa Bell.
In 1996, McTeer garnered critical acclaim – and both the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award and Critics’ Circle Theatre Award – for her performance as Nora in a West End production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
Tony Award
The following year, the production transferred to Broadway, and McTeer received a Tony Award, a Theatre World Award, and the Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play.
During the show’s run, McTeer was interviewed by Charlie Rose on his PBS talk show, where she was seen by American filmmaker Gavin O’Connor, who, at the time, was working on a screenplay about a single mother’s cross-country wanderings with her pre-teenage daughter. He was determined that she star in the film. When prospective backers balked at her relative anonymity in the US, he produced the film himself.
Tumbleweeds proved to be a 1999 Sundance Fest favorite, and McTeer’s performance won her a Golden Globe as Best Actress and Oscar Award and Screen Actors Guild nominations in the same category.
McTeer’s screen credits include Songcatcher (with Aidan Quinn), Waking the Dead (with Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly), the dogme film The King Is Alive (with Jennifer Jason Leigh), The Intended (with Brenda Fricker and Olympia Dukakis), and Tideland, written and directed by Terry Gilliam. She also starred in the dramatisation of Mary Webb’s Precious Bane.[8] She has appeared in such British television serials as The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Hunter,[2] and Agatha Christie’s Marple (episode: “The Murder at the Vicarage”).[8]
McTeer played Mary, Queen of Scots in Mary Stuart, a play by Friedrich Schiller in a new version by Peter Oswald, directed by Phyllida Lloyd. She acted opposite Harriet Walter as Queen Elizabeth I in London’s West End in 2005, a role she reprised in the 2009 Broadway transfer.[9] McTeer received a Tony Award nomination for her role in Mary Stuart, and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play.
2008–present
In 2008, she starred in God of Carnage in the West End alongside Tamsin Greig, Ken Stott and Ralph Fiennes, at the Gielgud Theatre.
She reprised her role on Broadway opposite Jeff Daniels from March to June 2010.
In 2009, she portrayed Clementine Churchill in the HBO feature Into the Storm about Sir Winston Churchill’s years as Britain’s leader during World War II.
In 2011, McTeer starred alongside Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs and with Daniel Radcliffe and Ciarán Hinds in The Woman in Black (based on the 1983 novel of the same name). Her role as Hubert Page in Albert Nobbs won McTeer critical acclaim and numerous award nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
It was announced in November 2011 that McTeer had joined the cast of Damages (in the character of Kate Franklin) for its fifth and final season, reuniting her with her Albert Nobbs co-star Glenn Close. This was her first American television series. She played American novelist Mary McCarthy in Margarethe von Trotta’s film Hannah Arendt.
In 2013 McTeer was cast as Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the mother of the title character in The White Queen, a British television drama series based on Philippa Gregory’s best-selling historical novel series The Cousins’ War. Her performance was applauded, with Sam Wollaston of The Guardian suggesting she stole the show. In December 2013, McTeer was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Jacquetta.
On 29 July 2013, McTeer had joined the cast of The Honourable Woman, a BBC spy-thriller miniseries starring Maggie Gyllenhaal.
In 2015, McTeer starred as Commander Kim Guziewicz in CBS comedy-drama Battle Creek, and filmed Exception based on The Kaiser’s Last Kiss (in which she was due to portray Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz), set for a 2016 release.
In 2016, McTeer played Petruchio in the New York Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew, directed again by Phyllida Lloyd.
She co-starred alongside Liev Schreiber in Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway, with McTeer cast as Marquise de Merteuil. The play ran from October 2016 to January 2017.
In 2018, she played Alisa Jones in the Marvel Television and Netflix production Jessica Jones. In September 2018, she took on the role of Sarah Bernhardt in Theresa Rebeck’s Broadway play Bernhardt/Hamlet.[22] She was nominated for the 2019 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play.[23]
McTeer portrays cartel attorney Helen Pierce on the Netflix crime drama Ozark.[24]
Honours
McTeer was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours.[25]
Personal life
McTeer has been married to poet and fashion consultant Joseph Coleman since 2010. They reside in Maine.[26][27]
Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1986 Half Moon Street Van Arkady’s Secretary
1988 Hawks Hazel
1991 I Dreamt I Woke Up Mysterious Woman/Lady of Lake/Journalist Short film
1992 Wuthering Heights Ellen “Nelly” Dean
1995 Carrington Vanessa Bell
1996 Saint-Ex Genevieve de Ville-Franche
1998 Velvet Goldmine Narrator Voice
1999 Tumbleweeds Mary Jo Walker Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Jury Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress
Nominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead
Nominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year
Nominated—New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
2000 Waking the Dead Caroline Pierce
2000 Songcatcher Professor Lily Penleric, PhD Sundance Film Festival – Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Performance
2000 The King Is Alive Liz
2002 The Intended Sarah Morris
2005 Tideland Dell
2006 As You Like It Audrey
2011 Cat Run Helen Bingham
2011 Island Phyllis Lovage
2011 Albert Nobbs Hubert Page Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Nominated—Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female
Nominated—Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
2012 The Woman in Black Mrs Daily
2012 Hannah Arendt Mary McCarthy
2014 Maleficent Elderly Princess Aurora (narrator)
2015 Angelica Anne Montague
2015 Insurgent Edith Prior
2015 Fathers and Daughters Carolyn
2016 Allegiant Edith Prior
2016 Me Before You Camilla Traynor
2016 National Theatre Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses Marquise de Merteuil
2016 Paint It Black Meredith
2016 The Exception Princess Hermine ‘Hermo’ Reuss of Greiz
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1985 Juliet Bravo Esther Pearson Episode: “Flesh and Blood”
1986 Gems Stephanie Wilde 2 episodes
1987 Theatre Night Miss Julie Episode: “Miss Julie”
1988 Les Girls Susan 7 episodes
1989 Precious Bane Prue Sarn Television film
1990 The Play on One Dr. Juliet Horowitz Episode: “Yellowbacks”
1990 Portrait of a Marriage Vita Sackville-West 4 episodes
1990 Screen Two Celeste Episode: “102 Boulevard Haussmann”
1990–1991 Screen One Adult Claudie/Caroline 2 episodes
1991 The Black Velvet Gown Riah Millican Television film
1992 Dead Romantic Madeleine Severn Television film
1992 A Masculine Ending Loretta Lawson Television film
1993 Don’t Leave Me This Way Loretta Lawson Television film
1994 Jackanory Reader Episode: “The Iron Woman”
1995–1996 The Governor Helen Hewitt 12 episodes
2004 Agatha Christie’s Marple Anne Protheroe Episode: “Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage”
2006 The Amazing Mrs Pritchard Catherine Walker 6 episodes
Nominated—Golden Nymph Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series
2007 Five Days DS Amy Foster 4 episodes
Nominated—Royal Television Society Award for Best Actor – Female
2007 Daphne Gertrude Lawrence Television film
2008 Sense and Sensibility Mrs. Dashwood 3 episodes
2008 Masterpiece Theatre Mrs. Dashwood Episode: “Sense and Sensibility”
2009 Hunter DS Amy Foster 2 episodes
2009 Into the Storm Clementine Churchill Television film
Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
2009 Psychoville Cheryl 2 episodes
2011 Weekends at Bellevue Diana Wallace Television film
2012 Parade’s End Mrs. Satterthwaite 4 episodes
2012 Damages Kate Franklin 9 episodes
2013 The White Queen Jacquetta of Luxembourg 6 episodes
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
2014 The Honourable Woman Dame Julia Walsh 8 episodes
2015 Battle Creek Commander Kim Guziewicz Main cast, 13 episodes
2016 Marks and Spencer Mrs. Claus Advert
2018 Jessica Jones Alisa Jones 11 episodes
2018–2020 Ozark Helen Pierce Recurring role (season 2)
Main role (season 3)
Nominated—Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
2018–2019 Sorry for Your Loss Amy Shaw Main role; 11 episodes
Video games
Y
1998 Populous: The Beginning Additional voices (voice)
