An accomplished and award-winning actress, Martha Plimpton has achieved success across stage, screen and television.
Plimpton was recently seen on on the big screen in the feature film Mass opposite Jason Isaacs, Ann Dowd, and Reed Birney, which premiered at Sundance in 2021, for which she received the Robert Altman Award along with her fellow collaborators. She also voiced the character of "Yelena" in Disney's block buster animated film Frozen 2. She was last seen on television on the HBO Max series, Generation, executive produced by Lena Dunham and on the Showtime adaption of The Man Who Fell to Earth. She will next be seen on the Amazon Freevee series Sprung and the British TV limited series A Town Called Malice.
Plimpton’s recent small screen work includes Brockmire, The Blacklist and Younger. Prior to that, Plimpton starred in the ABC series The Real O'Neal's as well
An accomplished and award-winning actress, Martha Plimpton has achieved success across stage, screen and television.
Plimpton was recently seen on on the big screen in the feature film Mass opposite Jason Isaacs, Ann Dowd, and Reed Birney, which premiered at Sundance in 2021, for which she received the Robert Altman Award along with her fellow collaborators. She also voiced the character of "Yelena" in Disney's block buster animated film Frozen 2. She was last seen on television on the HBO Max series, Generation, executive produced by Lena Dunham and on the Showtime adaption of The Man Who Fell to Earth. She will next be seen on the Amazon Freevee series Sprung and the British TV limited series A Town Called Malice.
Plimpton’s recent small screen work includes Brockmire, The Blacklist and Younger. Prior to that, Plimpton starred in the ABC series The Real O'Neal's as well as the FOX comedy Raising Hope. For her work in Raising Hope, Plimpton was nominated for an Emmy® Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series" and twice for a Critics' Choice Television Award for "Best Actress in a Comedy." Plimpton won the Emmy® Award for playing attorney Patti Nyholm in the CBS legal drama, The Good Wife. Plimpton has also appeared in episodes of Flack, At Home with Amy Sedaris, The Guest Book, How to Make it in America, Fringe, Medium, Grey's Anatomy, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, for which she earned an Emmy® Award nomination.
Plimpton's numerous film credits include The Goonies, The Mosquito Coast, Running on Empty, Beautiful Girls, Parenthood, 200 Cigarettes, Pecker, Eye of God, Small Town Murder Songs, Hello Again and Natalie.
On stage, Plimpton recently starred in Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize winning play Sweat at London's Donmar Warehouse in the West End and made her London stage debut in Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities at the Old Vic.
On Broadway, Plimpton starred alongside Stockard Channing in Pal Joey for the Roundabout Theatre Company, garnering her third Tony® nomination, as well as a Drama Desk nomination for "Best Featured Actress in a Musical" and a Drama League nomination. In the prior season, Plimpton starred in Top Girls for the Manhattan Theatre Club and received Tony® and Drama Desk nominations. Contiguous to that, Plimpton appeared in Tom Stoppard's nine-hour trilogy, The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center Theater, for which she earned a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony® nomination. Plimpton is the only actor in history to be nominated for a Tony® Award as a featured actress in three consecutive seasons for her performances from 2007 thru 2009.
Other stage appearances include starring alongside John Lithgow and Glenn Close in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, in the New York Philharmonic concert of Stephen Sondheim's Company opposite Patti LuPone and Stephen Colbert, Shakespeare in the Park's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shining City, The False Servant (which she received a Drama League nomination), HurlyBurly, and Lincoln Center Theater's production of Cymbeline. Plimpton is also the recipient of an Obie Award for her performance off-Broadway in Hobson's Choice.
Plimpton was a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble from 1998 until 2019. At Steppenwolf she appeared in John Synge's Playboy of the Western World, Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, Stephen Jeffries' The Libertine opposite John Malkovich, and made her directing debut there with Absolution in 2001. Plimpton currently serves as a Senior Artistic Associate at The Bush Theater in London.
In 2012, Plimpton co-founded the women's rights organization A IS FOR, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing women's reproductive rights and ending the stigma against abortion care. By partnering with and supporting reproductive rights organizations, A IS FOR works to defend reproductive rights on the ground. Simultaneously, A IS FOR challenges the stigma against abortion through media and online campaigns. A IS FOR envisions a world in which every woman has access to the full spectrum of reproductive choice. The organization hosts the only annual abortion right-focused fundraiser on Broadway, Broadway Acts for Women.
Plimpton lives in Brooklyn and London.