American actress
Michelle Williams' first screen appearance was at age thirteen in a 1993 episode of the television series
Baywatch, and she made her film debut as the love interest of a teenage boy in
Lassie (1994). She had guest roles in the sitcoms
Step by Step and
Home Improvement, and played the younger version of
Natasha Henstridge's character in the science fiction film
Species (1995). Greater success came to Williams when played the sexually troubled teenager
Jen Lindley in the teen drama series
Dawson's Creek (1998–2003). In 1999, she made her stage debut with the
Tracy Letts-written play
Killer Joe.
In the 2000s, Williams eschewed parts in big-budget films in favor of roles with darker themes in independent productions such as Me Without You (2001) and The Station Agent (2003). Despite positive reviews, these films were not widely seen. This changed in 2005 when Williams played the neglected wife of Heath Ledger's character in Brokeback Mountain, a drama about star-crossed gay lovers, which became a critical and commercial success; Williams gained a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her career did not progress much in the next few years, but Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy (2008), in which she starred as a drifter searching for her missing dog, was critically acclaimed. Martin Scorsese's thriller Shutter Island (2010), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, in which Williams had a supporting part, became her most widely seen film to that point.
Williams received two consecutive Oscar nominations for Best Actress for starring as an unhappily married woman in Blue Valentine (2010) and Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn (2011); she also won a Golden Globe Award for the latter. She next played Glinda in the commercially successful fantasy feature Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). On Broadway, she played Sally Bowles in a revival of the musical Cabaret in 2014, and a sexual abuse survivor in a revival of the play Blackbird in 2016. For the latter, she gained a Tony Award for Best Actress nomination. She earned another Academy Award nomination for playing a grieving mother in Manchester by the Sea (2016). The 2017 musical The Greatest Showman and the 2018 superhero film Venom emerged as two of her highest-grossing releases. She returned to television in 2019 to portray Gwen Verdon opposite Sam Rockwell's Bob Fosse in the FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actress. Williams received her fifth Oscar nomination for starring as a troubled mother in Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022).
Film
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Television
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Stage
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Music video
Discography