Allison Janney

Allison Janney has built a career around presence: the kind of poised, quick-thinking authority that can steady a political drama, sharpen a comedy or make a difficult character impossible to dismiss. Born in Boston in 1959 and raised in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, she studied theatre at Kenyon College before training at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her early career moved between stage, television and small film parts. She made her Broadway debut in the 1996 revival of Present Laughter, then earned a Tony Award nomination for A View from the Bridge. Film roles in Big Night, The Ice Storm, Primary Colors, 10 Things I Hate About You and American Beauty helped establish her as a dependable supporting player with a gift for making limited screen time count. The major television breakthrough was The West Wing, where Janney played White House Press Secretary C. J. Cregg. The role gave her room for both command and comedy, and brought her four Primetime Emmy Awards. She later found another long-running showcase in Mom, playing Bonnie Plunkett, a cynical recovering addict attempting to rebuild her relationship with her daughter. Janney won two more Emmys for the series, while her guest work on Masters of Sex earned another. Her film career has ranged comfortably across tones, from Juno, Hairspray and The Help to Spy, The Girl on the Train and Bombshell. In I, Tonya, she played LaVona, a role written specifically for her by screenwriter Steven Rogers. The fiercely abrasive performance earned Janney the Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress. Janney has also worked extensively as a voice actor, with credits including Finding Nemo, Phineas and Ferb and The Addams Family. More recently, she has appeared in Palm Royale and returned to political drama as Vice President Grace Penn in The Diplomat. Across stage and screen, her best work finds the tension between control and chaos—and usually a dry laugh somewhere in the middle.