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Michelle Ingrid Williams (born September 9, 1980) is an American actress. Known primarily for starring in small-scale independent films with dark or tragic themes, she has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for five Academy Awards and a Tony Award. Williams, daughter of politician and trader Larry R. Williams, began her career with television guest appearances and made her film debut in the family film Lassie in 1994. She gained emancipation from her parents at age fifteen, and soon achieved recognition for her leading role as Jen Lindley in the teen drama television series Dawson's Creek (1998–2003). This was followed by low-profile films, before having her breakthrough with the drama film Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned Williams her first Academy Award nomination. Williams received critical acclaim for playing emotionally troubled women coping with loss or loneliness in the independent dramas Wendy and Lucy (2008), Blue Valentine (2010), and Manchester by the Sea (2016). She won two Golden Globes for portraying Marilyn Monroe in the drama My Week with Marilyn (2011) and Gwen Verdon in the miniseries Fosse/Verdon (2019), in addition to a Primetime Emmy Award for the latter. Her highest-grossing releases came with the thriller Shutter Island (2010), the fantasy film Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), the musical The Greatest Showman (2017), and the superhero films Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021). Williams has also led major studio films, such as Ridley Scott's crime thriller All the Money in the World (2017) and Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022). On Broadway, Williams starred in revivals of the musical Cabaret in 2014 and the drama Blackbird in 2016, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She is an advocate for equal pay in the workplace. Consistently private about her personal life, Williams has a daughter from her relationship with actor Heath Ledger and was briefly married to musician Phil Elverum. She has two children with her second husband, theater director Thomas Kail. Life and career 1980–1995: Early life Michelle Ingrid Williams was born on September 9, 1980, in Kalispell, Montana, to Carla, a homemaker, and Larry R. Williams, an author and commodities trader. She has Norwegian ancestry and her family has lived in Montana for generations. Her father twice ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate as a Republican Party nominee. In Kalispell, Williams lived with her three paternal half-siblings and her younger sister, Paige. Although she has described her family as "not terribly closely knit", she shared a close bond with her father, who taught her to fish and shoot, and encouraged her to become a keen reader. Williams has recounted fond memories of growing up in the vast landscape of Montana. When she was nine, the family moved to San Diego, California. She has said of the experience, "It was less happy probably by virtue of it being my preteen years, which are perhaps unpleasant wherever you go." She mostly kept to herself and was self-reliant. Williams became interested in acting at an early age when she saw a local production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She performed in an amateur production of the musical Annie, and her parents would drive her from San Diego to Los Angeles to audition for parts. Her first screen appearance was as Bridget Bowers, a young woman who seduces Mitch Buchannon's son, Hobie, in a 1993 episode of the television series Baywatch. The following year, she made her film debut in the family feature Lassie, about the bond between the titular dog and a young boy (played by Tom Guiry). Williams played the love interest of Guiry's character, which led the critic Steven Gaydos to take notice of her "winning perf". She next took on guest roles in the television sitcoms Step by Step and Home Improvement, and appeared as the child form of Sil, an alien played in adulthood by Natasha Henstridge, in the 1995 science fiction film Species. By 1995, Williams had completed ninth grade at Santa Fe Christian Schools in San Diego. She disliked going there as she did not get along well with other students. To focus on her acting pursuits, she left the school and enrolled for in-home tutoring. At age fifteen, with her parents' approval, Williams filed for emancipation from them, so she could better pursue her acting career with less interference from child labor work laws. To comply with the emancipation guidelines, she completed her high school education in nine months through correspondence. She later regretted not getting a proper education. 1996–2000: Dawson's Creek and transition to adult roles Following her emancipation, Williams moved to Los Angeles and lived by herself in Burbank. She said of her initial experience in the city, "There are some really disgusting people in the world, and I met some of them." To support herself, she took assignments in low-budget films and commercials. She had minor roles in the television films My Son is Innocent (1996) and Killing Mr. Griffin (1997), and the drama A Thousand Acres (1997), which starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange. Williams later described her early work as "embarrassing", saying she had taken those roles merely to support herself as she "didn't have any taste [or] ideals". In 1997, unhappy with the roles she was being offered, Williams collaborated with two other actors to write a script titled Blink, about prostitutes living in a Nevada brothel, which despite being sold to a production company was never made. Having learned to trade under her father's guidance, a seventeen-year-old Williams entered the Robbins World Cup Championship, a futures trading contest; with a return of 1,000%, she became the first female to win the title and the third-highest winner of all time (her father ranks first). In 1998, Williams began starring in the teen drama television series Dawson's Creek, created by Kevin Williamson and co-starring James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson. The series aired for six seasons from January 1998 to May 2003 and featured her as Jen Lindley, a precocious New York-based teenager who relocates to the fictional town of Capeside. The series was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she lived for the six years of filming. Reviewing the first season for The New York Times, Caryn James called it a soap opera that was "redeemed by intelligence and sharp writing" but found Williams to be "too earnest to suit this otherwise shrewdly tongue-in-cheek cast". Ray Richmond of Variety labeled it "an addictive drama with considerable heart" and considered all four leads appealing. The series was a ratings success and raised Williams's profile. Her first film release since the debut of Dawson's Creek was the Jamie Lee Curtis-starring slasher picture Halloween H20: 20 Years.... Discover the Ben O Williams popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ben O Williams books.