Patricia Clarkson is an American actress. After making her acting debut in 1987, she gained prominence for her roles on stage and screen. She has received several accolades including three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a British Independent Film Award, five Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Tony Award.
Clarkson garnered critical acclaim for her performance playing a German actress struggling with heroin addiction in the drama High Art (1998), which earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination, among other critical accolades. Her subsequent performance as a warden's wife in psychological drama The Green Mile (1999) earned her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2003, she starred in three films which received numerous accolades. She portrayed a cancer-stricken matriarch who reunites with her daughter in Pieces of April (2003), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role. That same year she played an artist grappling with the death of her son in The Station Agent (2003), which earned her a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role. For her role in All the Real Girls, for she won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Clarkson earned two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as a free-spirited, bohemian aunt in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. She returned to the stage playing Mrs. Kendal in the Broadway revival of the Bernard Pomerance play The Elephant Man (2014) which earned her a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. In 2017, she won a British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Sally Potter's The Party. She played Adora Crellin, a Southern matriarch in the HBO limited series Sharp Objects (2018) earning a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or Television Movie.