Kelly Macdonald biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, on February 23, 1976, actress Kelly Macdonald idolized the strong women she saw on the big screen growing up. Doris Day's turn as the title character in the musical Calamity Jane was one of her early influences. Macdonald "used to watch the movie constantly, twice a day during the summer" when she was a child, she explained to USA Today.

Macdonald had a middle-class upbringing until her parents divorced. She was 9 years old when her parents split, and afterward, she and her brother stayed with their mother. Of her childhood, she told The Observer, "My mum always looked after us." Macdonald has remained largely estranged from her father.

Acting Career

Macdonald began her career with the acting equivalent of winning of a lottery. With no formal training at all, she landed a role in Danny Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting after going to an open audition. At the time, Macdonald had been working at a bar. She beat out hundreds of other young women to play Ewan McGregor's love interest in the movie. Boyle told The Observer that "Kelly has that thing Ewan McGregor has, indefinable star quality, yet they're ordinary people."

That same year, Macdonald had a starring role as a young prostitute in Stella Does Tricks. She landed some small parts and supporting roles in such films as Elizabeth (1998) with Cate Blanchett and My Life So Far (1999) with Colin Firth. In Robert Altman's Gosford Park, Macdonald gave a memorable performance as a young maid to Maggie Smith's upper-class character.

In 2003, Macdonald took on a more substantial role in the British miniseries State of Play with John Simm and Bill Nighy. She played a young reporter who gets caught up in a political mystery. Two years later, Macdonald reunited with Bill Nighy for the American television movie The Girl in the Cafe. She received an Emmy Award for her turn and Nighy's love interest in the film.

Macdonald showed her rare talent for accents in 2007 with her role in No Country for Old Men, playing a West Texan in this crime drama by brothers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Once again in a supporting role, Macdonald proved to be quite the scene-stealer as Josh Brolin's wife. She enjoyed another wave of success on the small screen with the Prohibition era crime drama Boardwalk Empire. The series, which debuted in 2010, features Steve Buscemi as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, the man who controls Atlantic City and much of its criminal enterprises. Macdonald plays his love interest, the spirited young widow and mother Margaret Schroeder.