Kelly Macdonald (born February 23, 1976) is a Scottish actress. Known for her performances on film and television, she has received various accolades including a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. She made her film debut in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996), with Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, & Robert Carlyle. She also appeared in the sequel T2 Trainspotting (2017).
Other films in the 1990s include Coky Giedroyc’s Stella Does Tricks (1996), with James Bolam, Hans Matheson, and Ewan Stewart; Cousin Bette (1998), with Jessica Lange, Elisabeth Shue, Bob Hoskins, Hugh Laurie, Aden Young, and Geraldine Chaplin; Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth (1998), with Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, John Gielgud, and Richard Attenborough; Gregg Araki’s Splendor (1999), with Kathleen Robertson, Johnathon Schaech, Matt Keeslar, and Eric Mabius; Entropy (1999), with Stephen Dorff, Judith Godrèche, Lauren Holly, Jon Tenney, Frank Vincent, Paul Guilfoyle, and Hector Elizondo; Mike Figgis’s The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999), with Julian Sands, Saffron Burrows, Stefano Dionisi, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers; and Hugh Hudson’s My Life So Far (1999), with Colin Firth, Rosemary Harris, Irène Jacob, Tchéky Karyo, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Malcolm McDowell.
Films in the early 2000s include Raymond De Felitta’s Two Family House (2000), with Michael Rispoli, Kathrine Narducci, Kevin Conway, Matt Servitto, and Vincent Pastore; House! (2000), with Freddie Jones, Miriam Margolyes, and Jason Hughes; Some Voices (2000), with Daniel Craig, David Morrissey, Julie Graham, and Peter McDonald; Peter Capaldi’s Strictly Sinatra (2001), with Ian Hart and Brian Cox; Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001), with Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Stephen Fry, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Derek Jacobi, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Emily Watson; John Crowley’s Intermission (2003), with Shirley Henderson, Colm Meaney, Cillian Murphy, and Colin Farrell; and Mark Forster’s Finding Neverland (2004), with Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, Dustin Hoffman, and Freddie Highmore.
Films in the mid to late 2000s include Nanny McPhee (2005), with Emma Thompson, Firth, Thomas Sangster, Angela Landsbury, and Imelda Staunton; Lassie (2005), with Peter O’Toole, Samantha Morton, Peter Dinklage, Edward Fox, and John Lynch; Michael Winterbottom’s A Cock and Bull Story (2005), with Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Henderson, Dylan Moran, Jeremy Northam, Naomie Harris, James Fleet, Hart, and Gillian Anderson; Joel & Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men (2007), with Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Woody Harrelson; The Merry Gentleman (2008), with Michael Keaton (who also directed) and Bobby Cannavale; Clark Gregg’s Choke (2008), with Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, and Joel Grey; and Bertrand Tavernier’s In the Electric Mist (2009), with Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Mary Steenburgen, Ned Beatty, and Pruitt Taylor Vince.
Films in the 2010s include The Decoy Bride (2011), with David Tennant, Alice Eve, Michael Urie, Maureen Beattie, Federico Castelluccio, and Dylan Moran; voicing the main character in Pixar’s Brave (2012), with Billy Connolly, Thompson, Julie Walters, Robbie Coltrane, McKidd, and Craig Ferguson; Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina (2012), with Kiera Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Matthew MacFayden, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Ruth Wilson, Olivia Williams, and Emily Watson; Special Correspondents (2016), with Ricky Gervais (who also directed), Eric Bana, Vera Farmiga, Kevin Pollak, Benjamin Bratt, America Ferrera, and Raúl Castillo; Swallows and Amazons (2016), with Andrew Scott, Rafe Spall, Jessica Hynes, and Harry Enfield; and The Journey Is the Destination (2016), with Ben Schnetzer and Maria Bello.
Films in the late 2010s include Simon Curtis’s Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), with Gleeson and Margot Robbie; Puzzles (2018), with Iffran Kahn, David Denman, Bubba Weiler, Austin Abrams, and Liv Hewson; Holmes & Watson (2018), with Will Farrell, John C. Reilly, Rebecca Hall, Brydon, Coogan, and Ralph Fiennes; and Gregor Jordan’s Dirt Music (2019), with Garrett Hedlund and David Wenham.
Films in the 2020s include John Madden’s Operation Mincemeat (2021), with Firth, Macfadyen, Penelope Wilton, Johnny Flynn and Jason Isaacs; Babak Anvari’s I Came By (2022), with George MacKay, Percelle Ascott, and Hugh Bonneville; Carol Morley’s Typist Artist Pirate King (2023), with Monica Dolan and Gina McKee.
Macdonald was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV movie or miniseries and won an Emmy for Best Actress in a miniseries or movie for The Girl in the Café (2005), with Bill Nighy. She was also nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actress in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014), with Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Aleksa Palladino, Michael Stuhlbarg, Stephen Graham, Vincent Piazza, Paz de la Huerta, Michael Kenneth Williams, Anthony Laciura, Paul Sparks, Dabney Coleman, Jack Huston, Gretchen Mol, Charlie Cox, Cannavale, Ron Livingston, Jeffrey Wright, and Ben Rosenfield.
Other TV movie and miniseries include Brush with Fate (2003), with Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Thomas Gibson, and Phyllida Law; State of Play (2003), with Morrissey, John Simm, Polly Walker, Nighy, and James McAvoy; Skellig (2009), with Tim Roth and Bill Milner; The Child in Time (2017), with Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Campbell Moore, and Saskia Reeves; The Victim (2019), with John Hannah; Girl/Haji (2019), with Takehiro Hira, Yōsuke Kubozuka, Will Sharpe, Masahiro Motoki, Justin Long, Anna Sawai, and Charlie Creed-Miles.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Trainspotting (1996) – directed by Danny Boyle
- Flowers of the Forrest (1996) – directed by Michael Whyte – TV movie
- Stella Does Tricks (1996) – directed by Coky Giedroyc
- Dead Eye Dick (1997) – directed by Nicola Black – short
- Cousin Bette (1998) – directed by Des McAnuff
- Elizabeth (1998) – directed by Shekhar Kapur
- Splendor (1999) – directed by Gregg Araki
- Entropy (1999) – directed by Phil Joanou
- The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999) – directed by Mike Figgis
- My Life so Far (1999) – directed by Hugh Hudson
- Tube Tales (1999) – directed by Amy Jenkins, Stephen Hopkins, Menhaj Huda, Charles McDougall, Bob Hoskins, Ewan McGregor, Jude Law, Armando Iannucci, & Gaby Dellal – anthology
- Two Family House (2000) – directed by Raymond De Felitta
- House! (2000) – directed by Julien Kemp
- Some Voices (2000) – directed by Simon Cellan Jones
- Strictly Sinatra (2001) – directed by Peter Capaldi
- Gosford Park (2001) – directed by Robert Altman
- Brush with Fate (2003) – directed by Brent Shields – TV movie
- Stare of Play (2003) – directed by David Yates – miniseries
- Intermission (2003) – directed by John Crowley
- Finding Neverland (2004) – directed by Marc Forster
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005) – directed by Garth Jennings
- The Girl in the Cafe (2005) – directed by David Yates – TV movie
- A Cock and Bull Story (2005) – directed by Michael Winterbottom
- All the Invisible Children (2005) – directed by Mehdi Charef, Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, Kátia Lund, Jordan and Ridley Scott, Stefano Veneruso, & John Woo – anthology
- Nanny McPhee (2005) – directed by Kirk Jones
- Lassie (2005) – directed by Charles Sturridge
- No Country for Old Men (2007)* – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
- The Merry Gentleman (2008) – directed by Michael Keaton
- Choke (2008) – directed by Clark Gregg
- In the Electric Mist (2009) – directed by Bertrand Tavernier
- Skelling: The Owl Man (2009) – directed by Annabel Jankel – TV movie
- The Decoy Bride (2011) – directed by Sheree Folkson
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)* – directed by David Yates
- Brave (2012)* – directed by Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman, co-directed by Steve Purcell
- Anna Karenina (2012) – directed by Joe Wright
- Special Correspondents (2016) – directed by Ricky Gervais
- Swallows and Amazons (2016) – directed by Philippa Lowthorpe
- The Journey Is the Destination (2016) – directed by Bronwen Hughes
- T2 Trainspotting (2017) – directed by Danny Boyle
- Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) – directed by Simon Curtis
- Puzzle (2018) – directed by Marc Turtletaub
- Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)* – directed by Rich Moore & Phil Johnston
- Holmes & Watson (2018) – directed by Etan Cohen
- The Victim (2019) – directed by Niall MacCormick – miniseries
- Dirt Music (2019) – directed by Gregor Jordan
- Operation Mincemeat (2021) – directed by John Madden
- I Came Back (2022) – directed by Babak Anvari
- Typist Artist Pirate King (2023) – directed by Carol Morley
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