Amy Ryan

Born:
Where: Queens, New York City, USA

The acclaimed stage actress has enjoyed a range of big screen appearances ranging from Capote to Before The Devil Knows Your Dead.

However, it was as drug-addled, negligent single mother in Ben Affleck's acclaimed drama Gone Baby Gone that she really left her mark.

After graduating from New York City's High School of Performing Arts, she attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center.

Hired for the National Tour of Biloxi Blues straight out of high school, Ryan worked steadily for the next decade off-Broadway and in regional theatre.

Here she originated roles in new plays by Neil LaBute, Arthur Miller and Neil Simon.

Her Broadway debut came in 1993 as Tess in The Sisters Rosensweig, and she went on to replace Calista Flockhart as Natasha in a 1997 revival of The Three Sisters when Flockhart left the cast to appear in the television series Ally McBeal.

She made her big screen debut in Roberta in 1999 and went on to appear in You Can Count on Me alongside Laura Linney.

In 2000, Ryan received the first of two Best Supporting Actress Tony Award nominations for playing the love-starved Sonya in Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov.

She followed this success with an appearance as Peggy in the 2001 Broadway production of The Women, and was again nominated for a Tony for playing Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire in 2005.

By 2001, director Sidney Lumet was so impressed with Ryan's ability that he cast her in three entirely different roles - Ellen, Paris and Rebecca - in his television series 100 Centre Street.

In 2004, she starred in the harrowing missing child drama Keane and also landed a fleeting role in Steven Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds.

Albert Brooks chose her to play his wife in Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World in 2005 while her role as a star-struck sheriff's wife in Capote earned her positive reviews.

She played the recurring role of Beatrice "Beadie" Russell in The Wire and also starred in Sidney Lumet's black thriller Before The Devil Knows Your Dead in 2007.

The same year she also appeared in the Steve Carell comedy Dan in Real Life as well as the drama Gone Baby Gone alongside Casey Affleck and Michelle Monoghan.