- Born
- Birth nameFrances Louise McDormand
- Nickname
- Fran
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She earned a BA in theater from Bethany College in 1979 and an MFA from Yale University in 1982. Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple (1984), in which she worked with filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Coen and his brother, Ethan Coen, in their films.
McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy, and in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award six times - Supporting in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), and Lead in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020), winning the Oscar for the latter three. She also won a Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of "Nomadland." Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, she dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the quintessential Minnesota Scandinavian, in Fargo (1996).
McDormand and Coen adopted a son, Pedro McDormand Coen, who was born in Paraguay, in 1994. They live in New York.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Larry-115
- SpouseJoel Coen(April 1, 1984 - present) (1 child)
- Children
- ParentsNoreen McDormandVernon McDormand
- She wears the wedding ring that originally was worn by her husband Joel Coen's first wife, a brief marriage that had ended in divorce in the late 1970s. She explained that she was being practical, and that the ring shouldn't be wasted.
- Her performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996) is ranked #27 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
- Was the third and youngest child adopted by her minister father, Vernon McDormand, and his wife, Noreen.
- Has one son, Pedro McDormand Coen, adopted from Paraguay in 1994.
- [on how she got the part in Fargo (1996)] "The fact that I'm sleeping with the director may have something to do with it."
- On playing 'mothers': "Those roles weren't just mothers in a story about a male protagonist. First they were specific, three-dimensional people."
- On "women's pictures": "Most women's pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men's pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down. I cry too, maybe three times a week, but it's not in closeup. It's a wide shot. It's in the context of a very large and very mean world."
- I'm a character actress, plain and simple...Who can worry about a career? Have a life. Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don't work, and then they work again.
- With most people when there's a pain in their life there's mental scar tissue that forms over the pain and helps you go on living. An actor's scar tissue really never covers over things the same way, not if you're going to be sensitive. With good technique, an actor can do that and walk through life without going insane.
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