Hope Davis

Hope Davis is an American actress born on March 23, 1964, in Englewood, New Jersey, the second of three children born to Joan, a librarian, and William Davis, an engineer. She was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, where she graduated from Tenafly High School in 1982. As a child, she was a close friend of actress Mira Sorvino, who lived across the street, and the two wrote and performed plays together in their backyards. Davis earned a degree in cognitive science from Vassar College and later trained at HB Studio in New York City.

Davis made her screen debut in Joel Schumacher's psychological horror film Flatliners in 1990, appearing as William Baldwin's fiancée. That same year she had a small role as a Parisian airport receptionist in Home Alone. Before her Broadway debut, she appeared in a Chicago stage production of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow alongside William Petersen. In 1992, she made her Broadway debut in Two Shakespearean Actors at the Cort Theatre, beginning a stage career that would span through 2009. Her Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play followed in 1994.

Davis returned to Broadway in 1997, playing Sasha in Anton Chekhov's Ivanov at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, opposite Kevin Kline, Marian Seldes, Jayne Atkinson, and Tom McGowan. She also participated in The 24 Hour Plays in 2004. Her most celebrated Broadway work came in 2009, when she starred in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage alongside Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, and Jeff Daniels, playing Annette, a wealth manager caught up in a confrontation between two sets of parents. The performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play.

Her film career gained significant momentum through a series of independent productions. She starred in The Daytrippers in 1996 and went on to appear in Alexander Payne's About Schmidt in 2002, playing Jack Nicholson's daughter, a role that brought her a New York Film Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The following year she starred opposite Paul Giamatti in American Splendor, portraying Joyce Brabner, the real-life wife of comic writer Harvey Pekar. That performance won her the New York Film Critics Circle Award and earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She portrayed socialite Slim Keith in the Truman Capote biopic Infamous in 2006, and received an Independent Spirit Award with the cast of Synecdoche, New York in 2008, in which she played Madeleine Gravis. In 2016, she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Maria Stark, Tony Stark's mother, in Captain America: Civil War, and appeared most recently in Wes Anderson's Asteroid City in 2023.

Television has also been a significant part of Davis's career. She appeared in the Dick Wolf NBC drama Deadline from 2000 to 2001, playing the ex-wife of Oliver Platt's newspaper editor character. She co-starred in the ABC drama Six Degrees from 2006 to 2007. In 2009, she joined the second season of HBO's In Treatment as Mia, a malpractice attorney returning to therapy after a twenty-year absence, opposite Gabriel Byrne. She later portrayed Hillary Clinton in the HBO and BBC film The Special Relationship in 2010, written by Peter Morgan and starring Michael Sheen and Dennis Quaid. She took recurring roles in HBO's Mildred Pierce in 2011, playing Mrs. Forrester, and in The Newsroom from 2012 to 2013, playing gossip columnist Nina Howard. Davis played Katya O'Connor, a former KGB agent, in the NBC drama Allegiance in 2015. From 2020 to 2023, she held a main role as Gina Baxter in the Showtime series Your Honor, starring alongside Bryan Cranston, and appeared in a recurring capacity as Sandi Furness in HBO's Succession from 2021 to 2023. Her work across In Treatment, The Special Relationship, and Succession brought her three Primetime Emmy Award nominations.