Julianna Margulies

Julianna Margulies, born June 8, 1966, in Spring Valley, New York, is an American actress whose career spans television, film, and Broadway. The youngest of three daughters, she grew up in a household shaped by her mother Francesca, a ballet dancer and eurythmy teacher, and her father Paul, a writer, philosopher, and Madison Avenue advertising executive. Both parents were Jewish, with Ashkenazi roots tracing back to Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Russia, and both adhered to the teachings of anthroposophy. Her parents divorced when she was one year old, after which she moved with her mother through several countries and states, including Sussex, England, and Paris, France. French was her first language, though she has since lost fluency in it. She attended Green Meadow Waldorf School and High Mowing School among other institutions before earning a degree in art history and English from Sarah Lawrence College, where she also studied theatre and appeared in campus productions. She had originally enrolled intending to pursue law or psychology.

Margulies made her feature film debut in the 1991 action film Out for Justice. In 1994, she was cast in the pilot episode of the NBC medical drama ER as Carol Hathaway, an emergency care nurse whose character was originally written to die. Test audiences responded strongly enough that producers kept the character alive, and Margulies became a series regular for six seasons. George Clooney, who filmed the pilot alongside her, encouraged her to wait for the ER producers rather than accept an extended role on Homicide: Life on the Street, which she had also been offered at the time. Her performance on ER earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1994, along with annual Emmy nominations throughout her tenure and four Golden Globe Award nominations. She was the only series regular cast member on the show to win a Primetime Emmy Award. After six seasons, she declined a reported $27 million contract for two additional years, a decision she later described as driven by a desire to return to New York, pursue theatre, and honor commitments already made to playwrights and directors. She returned to ER for one episode during its final season in 2009.

Following her departure from ER, Margulies appeared in the TNT miniseries The Mists of Avalon in 2001, a project she had long wanted to pursue. Her film credits include Dinosaur (2000), Evelyn (2002), Ghost Ship (2002), Snakes on a Plane (2006), City Island (2009), Stand Up Guys (2012), and The Upside (2017). She also appeared in the HBO crime drama The Sopranos from 2006 to 2007. In 2009, she took on the lead role of Alicia Florrick in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife, which ran through 2016. That performance brought her two additional Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Television Critics Association Award. Her subsequent television work includes the National Geographic miniseries The Hot Zone in 2019 and the role of Laura Peterson in the Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show from 2021 to 2023. Across her career, Margulies has accumulated three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Golden Globe Award, and eight Screen Actors Guild Awards, making her the second most awarded woman in SAG history after Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In 2015, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and she holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also published a memoir titled Sunshine Girl.

On Broadway, Margulies has been active from 2003 through 2024. Her stage credits include Festen, The 24 Hour Plays 2003, The 24 Hour Plays 2004, and Left on Tenth, in which she starred.