A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Kelly Macdonald is known to audiences globally for her memorable portrayals in works from acclaimed filmmakers and storytellers.
In the fall of 2012, she was seen starring in a third season of the hit television series Boardwalk Empire, from creator Terence Winter and executive producer Martin Scorsese. Her performance as Irish immigrant Margaret Schroeder has earned her Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations, and she has won two Screen Actors Guild Awards, together with her fellow actors from the show, for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Ms. Macdonald won an Emmy Award, and was a Golden Globe Award nominee, for her performance opposite Bill Nighy in David Yates' telefilm The Girl in the Café. The latter reteamed her with Mr. Yates and Mr. Nighy following their celebrated miniseries State of Play.
She won two Screen Actors Guild Awards, together with her fellow actors, for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture; these were for Robert Altman's Gosford Park and Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men. For her performance in the latter, she was also a BAFTA Award nominee, and won the London Critics Circle Film Award. She and the Gosford Park cast also shared the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Acting Ensemble.
Ms. Macdonald made her movie debut opposite Ewan McGregor in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, for which she was a BAFTA (Scotland) Award nominee. Her subsequent films have included Coky Giedroyc's Stella Does Tricks; Des McAnuff's Cousin Bette; Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, in which she played alongside Cate Blanchett as the ill-fated Isabel Knollys; Gregg Araki's Splendor; Phil Joanou's Entropy; Mike Figgis' The Loss of Sexual Innocence; Hugh Hudson's My Life So Far; Raymond De Felitta's Two Family House, for which she was a Spirit Award nominee; Peter Capaldi's Strictly Sinatra; John Crowley's Intermission; Marc Forster's award-winning Finding Neverland; Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story; Kirk Jones' Nanny McPhee, with Emma Thompson and Colin Firth; The Merry Gentleman, opposite director Michael Keaton, for which she received an Evening Standard British Film Award nomination; Clark Gregg's Choke, for which she shared with her fellow actors an ensemble Special Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival; and David Yates' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
She gave voice to Merida, the heroine of Brave, animation studio Pixar's first feature with a female protagonist, directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman.
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