Frances McDormand

Has one son, Pedro McDormand Coen, adopted from Paraguay in 1994.

Once lived in an apartment with Joel Coen , Ethan Coen , Sam Raimi , Scott Spiegel and Holly Hunter

Was the third and youngest child adopted by her minister father, Vernon McDormand, and his wife, Noreen.

Raised in Monessen, Pennsylvania.

Sister-in-law of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke.

Both of her parents were born in Canada. Her father, The Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister, was from Nova Scotia. Her mother, Noreen Eloise (Nickleson) McDormand, a housewife and nurse, was from Ontario.

She attended Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, and received her B.A. in theater in 1979. Then she attended Yale University School of Drama, New Haven, Connecticut, and received her M.F.A. in 1982.

Was jury president of the Berlin Film Festival, 2004.

Her Oscar-winning role, as Marge Gunderson in the film Fargo , was ranked #33 in the American Film Institutes Heroes list in their 100 years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains.

Was nominated for Broadways 1988 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for a revival of Tennessee Williams s "A Streetcar Named Desire.".

Was listed as a potential nominee on the 2006 Razzie Award nominating ballot. She was listed as a suggestion in the Worst Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film on Flux . However, she failed to receive a nomination. (Had she gotten the nomination, she would have been one of the few to be nominated for both Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, for North Country , and Worst Supporting Actress at the Razzies in the same year.)

Her performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo is ranked #27 on Premiere Magazines 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

As of 2013, she is one of six women who has received a Best Actress Oscar nomination, and the only one to have actually won, for a performance directed by her spouse--in McDormands case, for Fargo , directed by Joel Coen. The other five are Elisabeth Bergner for Escape Me Never (1935) , directed by Paul Czinner ; Joanne Woodward for Rachel, Rachel , directed by Paul Newman ; Jean Simmons for The Happy Ending , directed by Richard Brooks ; Gena Rowlands for A Woman Under the Influence & for Gloria , both directed by John Cassavetes ; and Julie Andrews for Victor Victoria , directed by Blake Edwards. Melina Mercouri received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Pote tin Kyriaki , directed by her future husband Jules Dassin , but Mercouri and Dassin werent yet married at the time of the nomination.

Co-starred with Charlize Theron in two films during the same year ( on Flux and North Country ).

Shared an apartment in the Bronx with Holly Hunter in the early 1980s until they moved in with Joel Coen , Ethan Coen and Sam Raimi into a house in Los Angeles.

Won a Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play in 2011. She was awarded for her performance in the play "Good People".

(August 2010) After a break from film work to focus raising her son, she has returned to work on location in Dublin, Ireland filming This Must Be the Place with Sean Penn. Also she has been filming her scenes for the upcoming Michael Bay blockbuster sequel Transformers: Dark of the Moon , overseeing projects as a producer and shortly begins rehearsals for her Broadway return in Good People opposite Tate Donovan , previews beginning February 8, 2011.

Was the 111th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Fargo at The 69th Annual Academy Awards on March 24, 1997.

Is one of 26 actresses who have received an Academy Award for their performance in a comedy, hers being for Fargo . The others, in chronological order, are Claudette Colbert ( It Happened One Night ), Loretta Young ( The Farmers Daughter ), Josephine Hull ( Harvey ), Judy Holliday ( Born Yesterday ), Audrey Hepburn ( Roman Holiday ), Goldie Hawn ( Cactus Flower ), Glenda Jackson ( A Touch of Class ), Lee Grant ( Shampoo ), Diane Keaton ( Annie Hall ), Maggie Smith ( California Suite ), Mary Steenburgen ( Melvin and Howard ), Jessica Lange ( Tootsie ), Anjelica Huston ( Prizzis Honor ), Olympia Dukakis ( Moonstruck ), Cher ( Moonstruck ), Jessica Tandy ( Driving Miss Daisy ), Mercedes Ruehl ( The Fisher King ), Marisa Tomei ( My Cousin Vinny ), Dianne Wiest ( Bullets Over Broadway ), Mira Sorvino ( Mighty Aphrodite ), Helen Hunt ( As Good as It Gets ), Judi Dench ( Shakespeare in Love ), Gwyneth Paltrow ( Shakespeare in Love ), Penlope Cruz ( Vicky Cristina Barcelona ), and Jennifer Lawrence ( Silver Linings Playbook ).

In 2015 she became the 23rd performer to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony). She won the 1997 Best Actress Oscar for Fargo , the 2011 Best Leading Actress in a Play Tony for "Good People," and the 2015 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Emmy for "Olive Kitteridge" .

Is one of 16 actresses to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony). The others, in chronological order, are Helen Hayes , Ingrid Bergman , Shirley Booth , Liza Minnelli , Rita Moreno , Maureen Stapleton , Jessica Tandy , Audrey Hepburn , Anne Bancroft , Vanessa Redgrave , Maggie Smith , Ellen Burstyn , Helen Mirren , Jessica Lange , and Viola Davis.

Friends with Tom Hanks.

Is one of 12 actresses to have won a Best Actress Oscar for playing a character who is pregnant at some point during the film, hers being for Fargo . The others are Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet , Luise Rainer for The Good Earth , Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind , Ginger Rogers for Kitty Foyle , Olivia de Havilland for To Each His Own , Jane Wyman for Johnny Belinda , Anna Magnani for The Rose Tattoo , Julie Christie for Darling , Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl , Liza Minnelli for Cabaret , and Sissy Spacek for Coal Miners Daughter .

We are on red alert when it comes to how we are perceiving ourselves as a species. There’s no desire to be an adult. Adulthood is not a goal. It’s not seen as a gift. Something happened culturally: No one is supposed to age past 45. . .

The only power you have is the word no.

I never trusted good-looking boys. .