Celebrity Biographies
Joan Allen
A figure of the Broadway theater, the cinema usually relegates her to roles of an exemplary woman, with some exceptions, such as the politics of Candidate for power with a dark past . Nominated for an Oscar three times, Joan Allen has also shown that she can be a real luxury secondary in productions such as The Bourne Supremacy .
The origins of Joan Allen (Rochelle, Illinois, August 20, 1956) could not be more humble, since the actress is the daughter of a gas station worker and a housewife. She is one of those Hollywood stars who already have a clear vocation for her from a very young age, because since she was little she dreamed of acting and participated in the theatrical productions of the institute. “I was always a good girl, without big problems. The theater gave me the opportunity to be sad, to be extravagant, to be angry, to be all those different things”, explained the actress.
After studying acting at the universities of Charleston and Macomb, he decided to found his own theater group, the Steppenwolf Theater Company, together with his pal John Malkovich , although Gary Sinise occasionally performed with them as well . They were very successful with the public, and Joan Allen spent a lot of time on stage in the early days of her career, although she also appeared in the telefilm Say Goodnight, Grace , with Malkovich, and in the series Evergreen . She made her film debut in 1985, with a small role in Compromising Positions , starring Susan Sarandon .
Her first great opportunity in the cinema was offered to her by the teacher Francis Ford Coppola , who hired her as a secondary inPeggy Sue got married . The Italian-American filmmaker was so pleased with her work that he shortly after offered her a more prominent role inTucker, a man and his dream , where she nailed her role as the model wife of Jeff Bridges , which in the long run was a bit detrimental to her career, as she was typecast in this role. Around this time, she also became a wife in real life, marrying fellow actor Peter Friedman in 1990 , with whom she had met on stage. On Broadway, Joan Allen earned immense prestige over the years, until she went on to win the Tony for the play ‘Burn This’. After embodying the mother of a child chess prodigy, and wife of Joe Mantegna , she inSteven Zaillian ‘s In Search of Bobby Fischer was Pat Nixon ,the estranged, Machiavellian wife of Anthony Hopkins , inOliver Stone ‘s Nixon ,the pregnant wife trying to save her husband, Daniel Day-Lewis , inThe Crucible , adaptation of a play by Arthur Miller , Kevin Kline ‘s cheated on wifeinThe Ice Storm , where he does one of his best work, The Unfaithful Wife of William H. Macy , inPleasantville , and the jilted wife who has a drinking problem inBeyond hate . She switched registers, playing a doctor in John Woo ‘s dynamic action film Face to Face ,and as an unabashedly pro-choice senator inCandidate for Power , where he reteamed with Christian Slater and Jeff Bridges, his co-stars in the aforementioned Tucker . Since then, Joan Allen has stood out with the secondary interpretations of her inNoa’s diary , and especially inThe Bourne myth andThe Bourne Ultimatum , where he gives life to a subtle high-ranking officer of the CIA who will be of valuable help to the protagonist. “I wanted to change gender, and I also play a woman who knows what she is talking about and who gets to have an important position within the CIA,” said the actress.
Joan Allen has had a daughter, Sadie, who is also an actress, with whom she appeared on stage in the play ‘The Heidi Chronicles’. She has the drama Bonneville pending , where she is accompanied by two other top mature actresses: Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates .