Born Amy Marie Madigan on September 11, 1950 in Chicago, Illinois to Dolores and John J. Madigan, her mother was an amateur actress ,and her father was a journalist who worked for Newsweek and provide political commentary on such shows as Meet the Press and Face the Nation.
During high school, Madigan performed in school plays. She later earned a B.A. in philosophy at Marquette University in Milwaukee before moving to Los Angeles in 1974 and studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theare and Film Institute.
Madigan first gained attention as a singer but transitioned into acting in the 1980s, making her TV debut in an episode of Hart to Hart in 1981 and her film debut in Love Child in 1982. That performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year. In 1983, she starred in the TV movie, The Day After
In 1984, she had a starring role in the film Streets of Fire and a supporting role in Places in the Heart, marrying her co-star in that film, Ed Harris in late 1983. In 1985, she starred in the TV movie The Laundromat for which she won a Cable Ace Award for her performance. That same year she and Harris starred in Louis Malle’s Alamo Bay and had a supporting role in Twice in a Lifetime for which she received Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.
Madigan made her Off-Broadway debut in 1987 in The Lucky Spot for which she won a Theatre World Award and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. In 1988, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting role in The Prince of Pennsylvania. In 1989, she played Kevin Costner’s wife in the Oscar nominated Field of Dreams. That same year she played John Candy’s girlfriend in John Hughes’ Uncle Buck and won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for Roe vs. Wade.
In 1991, Madigan starred opposite Olympia Dukakis in the Emmy nominated TV movie Lucky Day. She made her Broadway debut as Stella in the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire alongside Jessica Lange and Alec Baldiwn. Her next film was 1993’s The Dark Half, based on Stephen King’s novel in which starred opposite Timothy Hutton.
In 1996, she and Harris produced and starred in the television film Riders of the Purple Sage. In 1997, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting performance in Loved. In 2000, she portrayed Peggy Guggneheim in Pollock produced and directed by Harris in which he co-starred and received an Oscar nomination. In 2002, she had a supporting role as the officer who responded to aid the dying Matthew Shepard in the TV movie, The Laramie Project.
Madigan had her best big screen role in years in 2007’s Gone Baby Gone but has had difficulty finding meaningful acting opportunities since. She re-emerged in Zach Cregger’s 2025 hit horror film, Weapons for which she won numerous awards including an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress exactly forty years after her first nomination.
Amy Madigan has at long last emerged as an actress everyone knows and loves at 75.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
PLACES IN THE HEART (1984), directed by Robert Benton
Best remembered as the film for which Sally Field won her second Oscar, this was one of three 1984 films in which a brave woman fought the elements to hold onto to her home. The others were Country and The River for which Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek were also nominated. Madigan plays the married schoolteacher with whom Field’s sister’s husband, Ed Harris, is having an affair. Danny Glover as Field’s farmhand, John Malkovich as her blind boarder, and Lindsay Crouse as her sister also turn in unforgettable performances. Malkovich and Crouse were also Oscar nominated. Madigan married Harris in real life shortly before the film’s release.
TWICE IN A LIFETIME (1985), directed by Bud Yorkin
Dreadful film about an unhappily 50-year-old factory worker played by Gene Hackman who falls in love with a hot 40-year-old bartender played by Ann-Margret. Ellen Burstyn is hackman’s hairdresser wife who learns of the affair from her boss who sees Hackman and Ann-Margret kissing in public. Madigan is Hackman’s daughter whose husband Stephen Lang is currently unemployed and living in the family home. Ally Sheedy is her younger sister who is about to be married. Madigan is the one most upset by the affair and angrily confronts her father for which she somehow managed to receive a surprise Oscar nomination.
FIELD OF DREAMS (1989), directed by Phil Alden Robinson
This beloved baseball movie revolves around Iowa farmer Kevin Costner hears a voice in his cornfield tell him, “If you build it, he will come.” He interprets it as an instruction to build a baseball field on his farm, upon which will appear the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series. Madigan plays his faithful wife who supports tearing up the farm to do just that. James Earl Jones as a reclusive writer and Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe co-star with Burt Lancaster making an appearance as an elderly doctor that receives 3 Oscar nominations including Best Picture.
POLLOCK (2000), directed by Ed Harris
Pollock was a passion project for producer-director Harris who also starred as the temperamental alcoholic abstract expressionistic painter Jackson Pollock. The film zeroes in on his life from the late 1940s to his death in 1956 as he is helped by fellow artist Lee Krasna who puts her life on hold to support him. Harris received the third of four Oscar nominations for his performance. Marcia Gay Harden as Krasna was also nominated and won for Best Supporting Actress. Original expectations were for Harden to be nominated for Best Actress and Madigan to be nominated in support for her dynamic portrayal of art collector Peggy Guggenheim but that didn’t happen.
WEAPONS (1999), directed by Zach Cregger
Madigan finally got the role of her career as Aunt Gladys, the witch who is responsible for the disappearance of 17 children in the middle of the night a small Pennsylvania town. Julia Garner as the teacher whose class except for one boy disappears, Cary Christopher as the boy who isn’t taken, Josh Brolin as the father of one of the missing students, Alden Ehrenreich as an astute police officer on the case, and Benedict Wong as the school principal all turn in vivid characterizations but it is Madigan’s wicked witch who owns the film from the minute she shows up. It’s an all-too-rare instance of a journeyman actress getting her due at 75.
AMY MADIGAN AND OSCAR
Twice in a Lifetime (1985) – nominated – Best Supporting Actor
Weapons (2025) – Oscar – Best Supporting Actress
