Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin
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Ellen Barkin

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Ellen Barkin

Ellen Rona Barkin (born April 16, 1954) is an American actress. Her breakthrough role was in the 1982 film Diner, and in the following years, she had starring roles in films such as Tender Mercies (1983), Eddie and the Cruisers (1983), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), The Big Easy (1986), Johnny Handsome, and Sea of Love (both 1989).

In 1991, for her leading role in the film Switch, Barkin received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Her subsequent film credits include: Man Trouble (1992), Into the West (1992), This Boy's Life (1993), Bad Company (1995), Wild Bill (1995), The Fan (1996), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), Crime and Punishment in Suburbia (2000), Palindromes (2004), Trust the Man (2005), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Brooklyn's Finest (2009), and The Cobbler (2014).

In 1998, Barkin received a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the television film Before Women Had Wings. In 2011, she received the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her Broadway theatre debut in The Normal Heart. From 2016 until 2019, she played the leading role of Janine "Smurf" Cody on the TNT drama series Animal Kingdom. From 2012 until 2013, she played the leading role of Jane Forrest on the NBC sitcom The New Normal.

Her producing credits include the films Letters to Juliet, Shit Year (both 2010), and Another Happy Day (2011).

Barkin was born on April 16, 1954, in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Evelyn (née Rozin), a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman. Her family is Jewish; they emigrated from Siberia and the Ukrainian–Polish border.

Barkin lived in Flushing, New York, and attended Parsons Junior High School. She received her high school diploma at Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. She then attended Hunter College and double majored in history and drama. At one point, Barkin wanted to teach ancient history. She continued her acting education at New York City's Actors Studio. According to Time, she studied acting for 10 years before landing her first audition.

Her break-out role was in the comedy-drama film Diner (1982), written and directed by Barry Levinson, for which she received favorable reviews. Barkin was cast in the drama film Tender Mercies (1983) after impressing its director Bruce Beresford during an audition in New York City, despite her inexperience and his lack of familiarity with her work. Robert Duvall, who played the lead role in Tender Mercies, said of Barkin, "She brings a real credibility to that part, plus she was young and attractive and had a certain sense of edge, a danger to her that was good for that part." She also appeared in the 1983 rock and roll drama film Eddie and the Cruisers.

Barkin later appeared in several successful films, including the thrillers The Big Easy (1987), opposite Dennis Quaid and Sea of Love (1989), opposite Al Pacino. Barkin also appeared in off-Broadway plays, including a role as one of the roommates in Extremities, about an intended rape victim played by Susan Sarandon who turns the tables on her attacker. About her performance in the play Eden Court, The New York Times critic Frank Rich summarized: "If it were really possible to give the kiss of life to a corpse, the actress Ellen Barkin would be the one to do it. In Eden Court, the moribund play that has brought her to the Promenade Theater, Miss Barkin is tantalizingly alive from her bouncing blond ponytail to the long legs that gyrate wildly and involuntarily every time an Elvis Presley record plays on stage".

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