Michelle Williams

Michelle Ingrid Williams was born September 9, 1980, in Kalispell, Montana, and raised in San Diego, California. Her parents, Carla and Larry R. Williams, divorced when she was nine. She began acting in community productions and appeared in television before winning the role of Jen Lindley on The WB drama Dawson’s Creek. She played Jen from 1998 through the series’ 2003 finale, portraying a New York teenager whose arrival in Capeside unsettles the friendship among Dawson Leery, Joey Potter, Pacey Witter, and their classmates.

Her film work expanded during and after that run. In Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005), adapted from Annie Proulx’s story, she played Alma Beers, the wife of Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar. The drama follows the enduring, concealed relationship between Ennis and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist. Williams received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Alma. Ledger and Williams had a daughter, Matilda Rose, born in 2005; Ledger died in 2008.

She earned further Academy Award nominations for three performances: Cindy Heller in Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2010), opposite Ryan Gosling; Marilyn Monroe in Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn (2011), based on Colin Clark’s memoir about filming The Prince and the Showgirl; and Randi Chandler in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea (2016), opposite Casey Affleck. That film follows a grieving Massachusetts janitor facing family obligations after tragedy.

She collaborated repeatedly with Reichardt, appearing in Meek’s Cutoff (2010), Night Moves (2013), Certain Women (2016), and Showing Up (2022).

On stage, Williams made her Broadway debut as Sally Bowles in Cabaret in 2014. She returned to Broadway in Blackbird (2016), opposite Jeff Daniels, and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing her character Ellen Fine in Lucas Hnath’s The Waverly Gallery (2018).

She has also worked in contemporary television. In FX’s Fosse/Verdon (2019), she portrayed dancer and actor Gwen Verdon opposite Sam Rockwell as Bob Fosse. Her performance brought the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

She played Anne Weying in Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), and appeared as Glinda in Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), a prequel to The Wizard of Oz story.