Margo Martindale

Margo Martindale was born on July 18, 1951, in Jacksonville, Texas, the youngest of three children and the only daughter of William Everett and Margaret Martindale. Her oldest brother, Billy Martindale, went on to become a professional golfer and golf course designer. Growing up in Jacksonville, Martindale participated in golf, cheerleading, and drama, and was named Football Sweetheart and Miss Jacksonville High School in 1969. After graduating that same year, she enrolled at Lon Morris College before transferring to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she also attended summer courses at Harvard University. During that time she appeared onstage alongside future film and television actors Jonathan Frakes and Christopher Reeve.

Martindale began building her stage career in the early 1980s, spending four years at the Actors Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, where she formed a close friendship with actress Kathy Bates. Among her early stage accomplishments, she originated the role of Truvy Jones in the first production of Steel Magnolias and starred in its first national tour. Her Broadway credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Crimes of the Heart, with her stage work spanning from 1981 to 2003. She made her Broadway debut in the 2004 revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing Big Mama, a performance that earned her both a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play.

One of her earliest television appearances came in the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Martindale accumulated an extensive list of film credits, appearing in The Rocketeer (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), The Firm (1993), Dead Man Walking (1995), Marvin's Room (1996), and The Hours (2002), among others. She appeared alongside Susan Sarandon in both Lorenzo's Oil and Dead Man Walking, and played Hilary Swank's character's mother in Million Dollar Baby (2004). Additional film roles during this period included Nobody's Fool (1994) with Paul Newman, Practical Magic (1998), 28 Days (2000), The Human Stain (2003), and Proof of Life with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. Later film appearances include Walk Hard (2007), The Savages (2007), Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009), Secretariat (2010), Win Win (2011), August: Osage County (2013), Instant Family (2018), Uncle Frank (2020), and Cocaine Bear (2023).

On television, Martindale held recurring roles on a wide range of series. She played recurring character Camilla Figg across the first three seasons of Dexter and appeared in the A&E courtroom drama 100 Centre Street alongside Alan Arkin. From 2007 to 2008, she portrayed Nina Burns in The Riches with Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard. Her career reached a new level of recognition in 2011 when she joined the cast of the FX drama Justified for its second season, playing Mags Bennett, the matriarch of a crime family controlling drug activity in a fictional version of Harlan County, Kentucky. The role earned her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series as well as the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

Beginning in late January 2013, Martindale appeared on the FX spy drama The Americans as Claudia, a KGB handler overseeing two Soviet spies living in Cold War-era America. She received four Emmy Award nominations for the role, winning in both 2015 and 2016. She also co-starred in the CBS sitcom The Millers and played Audrey Bernhardt, the family matriarch, in the Amazon series Sneaky Pete starring Giovanni Ribisi, appearing across the pilot, first, second, and third seasons. Beginning in 2015, she took on the recurring role of Ruth Eastman, a campaign manager, on The Good Wife, and reprised the character in The Good Fight from 2018 to 2021. She portrayed Senator Elizabeth Guthrie in Your Honor from 2020 to 2021, and appeared as US Congresswoman Bella Abzug in the FX miniseries Mrs. America (2020), earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Martindale also voiced a fictionalized version of herself in the Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman. Additional television credits include recurring roles on Impeachment: American Crime Story (2021) and Mrs. Davis (2023). In November 2019, she hosted I Spy, a podcast produced by Foreign Policy.

In her personal life, Martindale has been married to musician Bill Boals since 1986.