Laurie Metcalf

Laurie Metcalf — latest news, discussion & facts — IJR

1976–1987: Rise to prominence

Metcalf attended Illinois State University and earned her Bachelor of Arts in Theater in 1976. While at ISU, she met fellow theater students, among them John Malkovich, Glenne Headly, Joan Allen, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry, the latter two of whom, along with Perry's high school classmate Gary Sinise, went on to establish Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Metcalf began her professional career at Steppenwolf, of which she was a charter member. Metcalf went to New York to appear in an Off-Broadway Steppenwolf production of Balm in Gilead at Circle Repertory in 1984 for which she received the 1984 Obie Award for Best Actress and a 1984–85 Theatre World Award (for best debut in a Broadway or Off-Broadway performance). Metcalf was praised for her performance as Darlene, and was specifically singled out for her 20-minute act two monologue. Chicago critic Richard Christiansen stated:

There's a moment when Laurie Metcalf—who plays this poor young thing that comes to the big city and hangs out at this greasy spoon diner where the play is set—is talking about her once boyfriend who is an albino; I think it's a monologue of about five, six, seven minutes. Just to sit there and watch and hear Laurie unspool that story, it just brought tears coming down your eyes—oh, boy, it was something.

Metcalf has appeared in several television series, including being a cast member for a single episode of Saturday Night Live—the final episode of the show's tumultuous 1980–1981 season. In 1981, she appeared as a feature player on the first Dick Ebersol-produced episode of Saturday Night Live following the firing of Jean Doumanian. She appeared in a Weekend Update segment about taking a bullet for the president of the United States. Because of the sketch show's perceived severe decline in quality at the time and the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike, the show was put on hiatus for retooling. Metcalf was not asked to return as a cast member the following year.

Metcalf's first on-screen appearance was an uncredited role as a maid in Robert Altman's comedy A Wedding (1978). During the 1980s, Metcalf performed supporting roles in many popular films, including the Susan Seidelman comedies Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Making Mr. Right (1987), Gary Sinise's drama Miles from Home (1988), the Pat O'Connor comedy Stars and Bars (1988), and John Hughes' comedy film Uncle Buck (1989).

1999–2007: Established actress

From 1999 to 2001, Metcalf costarred with Norm Macdonald on The Norm Show (later known as Norm), which ran for three seasons (1999–2001), and later starred opposite Nathan Lane in the 2003 comedy series Charlie Lawrence, which was cancelled after the airing of two episodes. In 2008, Metcalf starred in The CW dramedy Easy Money, as the matriarch of a family of loan sharks. The series was canceled after three episodes. Through this period, Metcalf had guest-starring roles on series such as Absolutely Fabulous, Malcolm in the Middle (as Susan Welker, Lois' younger sister), My Boys, Frasier, Portlandia, Without a Trace, and Grey's Anatomy, the last of which she played opposite her ex-husband Jeff Perry. Her work on the Tony Shalhoub-led Monk and the ABC ensemble comedy drama Desperate Housewives earned her a further two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

Metcalf voiced Andy's mother in the Disney-Pixar animated film Toy Story (1995), reprising the role in Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Toy Story 4 (2019). All four films were huge financial and critical successes, grossing well over a collective billion dollars. In 1997, she portrayed Debbie Salt in the horror film Scream 2. She made a brief foray into television films in the late 1990s, portraying the real-life gun control activist Carolyn McCarthy in the NBC film The Long Island Incident (1998).

In the 2000s, Metcalf became known mostly for her voice work in film. In 2002, she voiced Sarah Hawkins in the Disney animated Treasure Planet (2002). Despite the film receiving positive reviews, the film was a financial box office failure. In 2007, she voiced Lucille Krunklehorn-Robinson in the Disney animated film Meet the Robinsons. The film, like Treasure Planet, was met with mixed reviews. A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "Meet the Robinsons is surely one of the worst theatrically released animated features issued under the Disney label in quite some time". Metcalf did not feature in many live action films during this period but she did appear in the raunchy comedy Beer League (2006), the Jim Carrey-led comedy remake Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), the coming-of-age drama Georgia Rule (2006) with Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan, and the war drama Stop Loss (2008) with Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

In 2007, Metcalf made her first appearance as Mary Cooper, the mother of Sheldon Cooper, one of the main characters, on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. She reprised the role repeatedly over its twelve-season run, and in 2016, her performance earned Metcalf her fourth nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Her daughter, Zoe Perry portrayed a younger version of Mary in the spinoff prequel series Young Sheldon.

2008–2019: Broadway roles and Lady Bird

Metcalf ultimately relocated to New York City and began to work in theatrical productions such as David Mamet's November on Broadway in 2008, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. In June 2009, Metcalf starred in Justin Tanner's play Voice Lessons with French Stewart in Hollywood before beginning rehearsals to play Kate Jerome in the Broadway revival of Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical plays Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound, directed by David Cromer. The former production's run, however, lasted for nine performances in October 2009, and the latter was canceled before opening. Voice Lessons, with its original cast intact, went on to run three more times — one Off-Broadway in May 2010, another in Hollywood in May 2011, and another in Chicago in May 2016. In September 2010, Metcalf returned to Steppenwolf and starred in Lisa D'Amour's play Detroit. In 2011, she appeared in the Off-Broadway play The Other Place by Sharr White, directed by Joe Mantello. She won the 2011 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Lead Actress, and the 2011 Obie Award, for her performance.

In 2012, Metcalf joined David Suchet in a West End production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, for which she was nominated for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress. In 2013, The Other Place transferred to Broadway with Metcalf reprising her role and earning Tony and Drama League nominations. She starred with her real-life daughter, Zoe Perry. In 2013, Metcalf starred in Bruce Norris's Off-Broadway play Domesticated with Jeff Goldblum at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater of Lincoln Center. She was nominated for the 2014 Drama League Award, Distinguished Performance and the 2014 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her performance.

From 2013 to 2015, Metcalf starred in the HBO comedy series Getting On. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for its final season, losing to Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Veep. She was also the lead actress in the short-lived CBS family sitcom The McCarthys (2014–15). In 2015, she took the role of Annie Wilkes in the Broadway production of Stephen King's Misery, opposite Bruce Willis. The play premiered on November 15, 2015, at the Broadhurst Theatre. It received mixed reviews from critics, but Metcalf's performance was widely acclaimed. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, her third Tony nomination overall.

In 2016, Metcalf took a dramatic turn in the third episode of Louis C.K.'s self-funded show Horace and Pete, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Matt Brenann of IndieWire praised Metcalf's performance: "Metcalf's inflections and expressions [are the narrative's] central characters; C.K.'s unflinching direction drinks her performance to the lees, to the point that Sarah's recollection of an afternoon sunbathing bristles with suspense, approaching the edge of some invisible precipice." On April 28, 2017, it was announced that a revival of Roseanne was in the works and that Metcalf along with most of the original cast and some of the producers would return for the limited series that was being shopped around with ABC and Netflix the frontrunners to land the show. On May 16, 2017, producers confirmed that eight episodes would air mid-season in 2018 on ABC. On May 29, 2018, in the wake of racist remarks by Barr posted on Twitter regarding former president Barack Obama's advisor Valerie Jarrett, ABC cancelled the revival after a single season.

Metcalf reprised her role in The Conners, a spinoff of Roseanne without Barr's involvement which premiered in fall 2018. In 2018, Metcalf's portrayal of Jackie Harris earned a fifth Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series nomination for her work on the revival of Roseanne. The show had a seven season run before concluding on April 23, 2025.

Metcalf appeared on Broadway in Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2 with Chris Cooper at the John Golden Theatre. which opened in April 2017. She received critical acclaim for her performance and she won her first Tony Award. In 2017, Metcalf received universal critical acclaim for her performance as tough-loving mother Marion McPherson in Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age film Lady Bird starring alongside Saoirse Ronan and Tracy Letts. For her performance, she was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, Critics' Choice and the Independent Spirit Award. In 2018, Metcalf performed in the Broadway revival of Three Tall Women with Glenda Jackson and Allison Pill at the John Golden Theatre in 2018. She won her second consecutive Tony Award. The following year, Metcalf played Hillary Clinton opposite John Lithgow as Bill Clinton in Lucas Hnath's Hillary and Clinton on Broadway, again at the John Golden Theatre. The play was directed by Joe Mantello and tells a fictional account of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. It ran April 18, 2019 through June 23, 2019. Metcalf was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.