Glenn Close

Glenn Close
Screenshot, Nigel Blair

A longtime philanthropist and seven-time Academy Award nominee, made her feature film debut in The World According to Garp, earning her first Oscar nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big ChillThe NaturalFatal AttractionDangerous LiaisonsAlbert Nobbs—for which she was also co-screenwriter, producer, and lyricist on the Golden Globe-nominated song, “Lay Your Head Down”—and most recently for The Wife. For her performance in The Wife she won Golden Globe, SAG, Independent Spirit, and Critics’ Choice Awards as Best Actress. In 2020 she gave an unforgettable performance in amfAR’s virtual production of The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America. She can currently be seen in Hillbilly Elegy, directed by Ron Howard. For her performance she has been nominated for a Golden Globe and SAG Award as Best Supporting Actress.

Close made her theater, and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince’s revival of Love for Love. Her theater credits include The Crucifer of Blood, Tony Award-nominated Barnum, and Tony Award-winning performances in The Real ThingDeath and the Maiden, and Sunset Boulevard. She reprised her role in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway in 2017 in a special production and starred in The Mother of the Maid at the Public Theater in 2018. For World AIDS Day 2020 Close participated in a reading from The Inheritance, a Broadway play about gay life in the early 21st century in the wake of the AIDS crisis, envisioned by playwright Matthew López as a video version of an AIDS quilt. 

Starting in 2007, Close headlined the legal thriller Damages for five seasons, winning two consecutive Best Actress Emmys. Her 14 Golden Globe nominations include a Best Actress Award for The Lion in Winter. Among her 14 Emmy nominations is also a Best Actress Award for Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, which also earned her a Peabody Award as executive producer.

Close has long supported issues affecting the LGBTQ community and mental health. In 2010, she co-founded Bring Change to Mind, a charity dedicated to ending the systemic stigma and discrimination around mental illness. The organization’s top priority is the establishment of stigma-free Bring Change to Mind High School clubs around the nation, with 400 clubs currently active. Close also has sponsored dogs for Puppies Behind Bars. She is a trustee emeritus of the Sundance Institute, having served as a board member for 16 years.