Christine Baranski

Christine Jane Baranski (born May 2, 1952) is an American actress. She received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Maryann Thorpe in the sitcom Cybill (1995–1998). Baranski is also known for her roles as Diane Lockhart in the legal drama series The Good Wife (2009–2016) and its spin-off series The Good Fight (2017–2022), and as Agnes van Rhijn in the period drama series The Gilded Age (2022–present); both roles earned her Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

Baranski is also known for her film roles in Reversal of Fortune (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Cruel Intentions (1999), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Chicago (2002), Mamma Mia! (2008), Into the Woods (2014), and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). For her recurring role as Dr. Beverly Hofstadter in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory (2009–2019), she received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

Baranski won two Tony Awards for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Charlotte in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (1984) and as Chris Gorman in Neil Simon's Rumors (1989). Her other major Broadway credits include Hurlyburly (1984), The House of Blue Leaves (1986), and Boeing Boeing (2008). She also portrayed Mrs. Lovett in the Kennedy Center's production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2002).

Baranski was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Virginia (née Mazurowska) (1916-2002) and Lucien Baranski (1914-1960), who edited a Polish-language newspaper. She had an older brother, Michael J. Baranski (1949–1998), an advertising executive who died at age 48. She is of Polish descent, and her grandparents were stage actors in Poland before immigrating to the United States. Baranski was raised in a heavily Polish and Catholic neighborhood in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga. She attended high school at the Villa Maria Academy where she was class president and salutatorian. She studied at New York City's Juilliard School (Drama Division Group 3: 1970–1974), where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Baranski made her off-Broadway debut in Coming Attractions at Playwrights Horizons in 1980, and has appeared in several off-Broadway productions at the Manhattan Theatre Club, starting with Sally and Marsha in 1982. She was in the original 1983 off-Broadway version of Sunday in the Park with George, but did not participate in the show's later Broadway run. Baranski made her Broadway debut in Hide & Seek in 1980. For her next Broadway performance, in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, she won the 1984 Tony Award Best Featured Actress in a Play. Other Broadway credits include Hurlyburly, The House of Blue Leaves, Rumors (for which she won her second Tony), Regrets Only, Nick & Nora, and the Encores! concert staging of Follies.

At the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Baranski starred as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd in 2002 (for which she won the 2003 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical) and as the title character in Mame in 2006. In her first Broadway production since 1991, Baranski was featured as the maid Berthe in the 2008 revival of Boeing Boeing. The show garnered two Tony Awards, one for Best Revival of a Play and the other for Best Actor (Mark Rylance). The original cast was Bradley Whitford (Bernard), Kathryn Hahn (Gloria), Christine Baranski (Berthe), Gina Gershon (Gabriella), and Mary McCormack (Gretchen). The show closed on January 4, 2009.

Baranski also appeared in a one-night-only concert benefit performance of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music for Roundabout Theatre Company as Countess Charlotte Malcolm on January 12, 2009. The cast included Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Victor Garber and Marc Kudisch. Baranski has won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Awards twice. In 2018, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Baranski has appeared in various film roles. Some of her better-known roles are as Katherine Archer in The Birdcage (1996), Martha May Whovier in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Mary Sunshine in Chicago (2002) and Connie Chasseur in The Ref (1994). Baranski received further recognition for her role as Tanya Chesham-Leigh in the hit musical film Mamma Mia! (2008), and its sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). Baranski played Cinderella's stepmother in the 2014 film adaptation of the musical Into the Woods. Baranski has also appeared in the films 9½ Weeks (1986), Legal Eagles (1986), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Addams Family Values (1993), Jeffrey (1995), The Odd Couple II (1998) Bulworth (1998), Cruel Intentions (1999), Bowfinger (1999), Welcome to Mooseport (2004), Trolls (2016) and A Bad Moms Christmas (2017).