Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Additionally, she has received two Golden Globe Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. Although primarily recognized for her roles in small-budget independent films, McDormand's worldwide box office gross exceeds $2.2 billion helped by her appearances in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012).
McDormand was educated at Bethany College and Yale University. She has been married to Joel Coen of the Coen brothers since 1984. She has appeared in a number of their films, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). For her portrayal of a pregnant police chief in Fargo, McDormand won her first Academy Award for Best Actress. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005). McDormand won two more Academy Awards for Best Actress for starring as a justice-seeking mother in the crime drama film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and a widowed van-dwelling nomad in the drama film Nomadland (2020), making her the second woman in history to win Best Actress three times, and the seventh performer overall to win three competitive Academy Awards in acting categories. For producing the latter, she was also awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture, making her the first person in history to win Academy Awards both as producer and performer for the same film.
On television, McDormand produced and starred as the titular protagonist in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), which won her the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. On stage, McDormand made her Broadway debut in a 1984 revival of the drama Awake and Sing!, and received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Stella Kowalski in a 1988 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. She returned to Broadway in 2008 with a revival of The Country Girl, leading to a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Play. In 2011, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing a troubled single mother in Good People.
