Patricia Davies Clarkson (born December 29, 1959) is an American actress. She has starred in numerous leading and supporting roles in a variety of films ranging from independent film features to major film studio productions. Her accolades include a Golden Globe Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.
Clarkson studied acting at the Yale School of Drama before making her feature film debut in Brian De Palma's mob drama The Untouchables (1987). She acted in a string of films including The Dead Pool (1988), Jumanji (1995), High Art (1998), The Green Mile (1999), The Pledge (2001), Far from Heaven (2002), and Dogville (2003). In 2003 she gained acclaim for her portrayals of a cancer-stricken matriarch who reunites with her daughter in Pieces of April (2003), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and an artist grappling with the death of her son in The Station Agent (2003), which earned her a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role.
She later expanded her career taking roles in numerous films acting in dramas such as Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), All the King's Men (2006), Elegy (2008), Shutter Island (2010), The Party (2017), Monica (2022), and She Said (2022) as well as the comedy films Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Whatever Works (2009), Easy A (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), and Learning to Drive (2014). She also portrayed the villainous Ava Paige in the dystopian science-fiction film series Maze Runner from 2014 to 2018.
On television, she took a recurring guest role on the HBO series Six Feet Under (2002–2005) earning two Primetime Emmy Awards. She is also known for her recurring roles in the NBC sitcoms Frasier and Parks and Recreation and the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. For her role in the HBO limited series Sharp Objects (2018), she earned a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. She played an outspoken wife in the BBC series State of the Union (2022), earning another Primetime Emmy Award.
On stage, Clarkson made her Broadway debut as a replacement in the John Guare play The House of Blue Leaves (1986). She returned to Broadway playing a Wall Street investment counselor in the Richard Greenberg play Eastern Standard (1989), and Mrs. Kendal in the revival of the Bernard Pomerance play The Elephant Man (2014), the later of which earned her a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She reprised the role at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2015 in her West End debut. She later featured in a West End revival of the Eugene O'Neill play Long Day's Journey into Night (2024).
Early life
Clarkson was born on December 29, 1959, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Jackie Clarkson (née Brechtel), a New Orleans politician and councilwoman, and Arthur "Buzz" Clarkson, a school administrator who worked at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine. Clarkson's maternal great-grandmother was a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant who settled in New Orleans, while her maternal great-grandfather emigrated from Spain. Her mother's ancestry also includes Irish and German, while Clarkson's father was of English, Scottish, and Welsh descent.
She is one of five sisters, all of whom attended O. Perry Walker High School, where she graduated in 1977. She was raised in Algiers, a section of New Orleans on the West Bank of the Mississippi River.
From 1977 to 1979, Clarkson studied speech pathology at Louisiana State University before deciding she wanted to pursue a drama degree. In 1980, she transferred to Fordham University in New York City to enroll in their undergraduate acting program, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 1982. She then earned her Master of Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1985.
Early work
After graduating from the Yale School of Drama, Clarkson was cast in a 1986 Broadway production of The House of Blue Leaves as a replacement in the role of Corrinna Stroller. The following year, she made her feature film debut in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987), portraying Catherine Ness, the wife of US Treasury Prohibition agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner). Clarkson stated she was struggling financially at the time, paying student loans, and De Palma expanded her role in the film; she originally had only several days of shooting. The next year, she played opposite Clint Eastwood in The Dead Pool (1988), the fifth installment in the Dirty Harry film series.
Clarkson returned to Broadway in 1989 in Eastern Standard, portraying a Wall Street investment counselor whose brother (played by Kevin Conroy) is diagnosed with AIDS; the play ran from January to March of that year.
Clarkson has stated that in the early 1990s, she went through a turbulent period in her career and was unable to find significant work. She had a small role in Jumanji (1995) before being cast in the independent drama High Art (1998), portraying a drug-addicted German actress in New York City. Her performance earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1998, Clarkson had a small role in the critically acclaimed independent romantic comedy Playing by Heart, portraying a woman at a bar who listens to a false story told by a man (Dennis Quaid) as part of his improv class. In 1999, Clarkson appeared in a supporting role as an ailing wife of a prison warden in The Green Mile, which was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble Cast. The same year, she had a supporting part in the romantic comedy Simply Irresistible (1999), followed by a supporting part in Stanley Tucci's biopic Joe Gould's Secret (2000). Next, she portrayed a single mother in the drama The Safety of Objects (2001), and had a supporting role opposite Jack Nicholson in the Sean Penn-directed thriller The Pledge (2001), playing the mother of a murder victim. She also had a leading role in the independent horror film Wendigo (2001), directed by Larry Fessenden, and in the comedy Welcome to Collinwood (2002). Roger Ebert praised the performances in the former, noting: "The actors [in Wendigo] have an unforced, natural quality that looks easy but is hard to do." In 2001 she had a recurring role on Frasier as Claire French, who dated Frasier Crane, played by Kelsey Grammer.
Critical breakthrough
In 2002, Clarkson was cast in a supporting role in Todd Haynes's period drama Far from Heaven, opposite Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, playing the neighbor of a repressed housewife in the 1950s. The same year, she starred as Margaret White in the television film adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. Between 2002 and 2005, Clarkson had a guest-starring role on the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, playing Sarah O'Connor, the artist sister of Ruth Fisher. For her portrayal, she won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, in 2002 and 2005, respectively.
Clarkson appeared in multiple independent films in 2003, including The Baroness and the Pig; Lars von Trier's experimental drama Dogville, the critically acclaimed indie film The Station Agent, playing an artist who befriends a diminutive man (Peter Dinklage) who suddenly appears as a town resident living in a local train depot; Pieces of April, in which she portrayed a mother dying of cancer who travels to visit her estranged daughter (Katie Holmes) for Thanksgiving; and the David Gordon Green-directed drama All the Real Girls, as the mother of a young womanizer in a small southern town. Four of the films—The Baroness and the Pig, Pieces of April, The Station Agent, and All the Real Girls—premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Clarkson received numerous accolades for her performances: For The Station Agent, she won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance, and was nominated…