Australian-born Judy Davis (born 1955) rebelled against her schooling at the monastery and ended up in a rock band. Davis soon gave up her career as a singer and began attending lectures at the Institute of Technology of Western Australia, then devoted herself to studying performing skills at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts.
In her subsequent stage career, she gravitated to roles of a very wide range - from strong and confident characters to vulnerable and doubtful: she played title roles in Lulu and Piaf, portrayed a double of Marilyn Monroe in Nothingness.
She has been acting in films since 1977 and became known as Sybylla Melvin in the film directed by Gillian Armstrong My Brilliant Career (1979) - this role earned her several prizes, including the Australian equivalent of the Oscar. For some time after her early success, Davis remained in his native Australia, and for outstanding work in “Deception” (1981), “Winter of Our Dreams” (1981) (the role of a lonely prostitute), “Heat” (1981) and “Kangaroo” (1984) – in the latter she starred with her husband Colin Friels – she was also showered with awards of various festivals.
For the embodiment of the image of a young Golda Meir in the television miniseries “A Woman Named Golda” (1982), Davis was nominated for an Emmy, and for the interpretation of the mysterious Adele Quested in “A Trip to India” (1984) David Lean she received the first nomination for an Oscar.
After moving to the United States, in the early 90s, the talent of the actress shone with new facets, her virtuoso performance of the roles tired of life, nervous, sensitive and at the same time generally sympathetic women deserved high praise from critics. Judy Davis, whom one colleague described as a “patron of modern feelings”, never does anything halfway: she was a seductive George Sand in “Expromt” (1991), in “Barton Fink” (1991) played the girlfriend of a Hollywood playwright who kills himself in drunkenness, in “Lunch naked” (1991) – the wife of “alter ego” William Burroughs, starred in the film adaptation of the novel “Where Angels Are Afraid to Step” (1991), which shows the stiff world of the English arist. Woody Allen, who starred Davis in a small role in his eccentric Alice (1990), invited the talented actress to the quartet Husbands and Wives (1992), where she played the role of an imperious ex-wife, who brought Judy Davis a second Oscar nomination.
Director George Sluiser invited Judy Davis to the psychological thriller Dark Blood (1993), but production was closed after River Phoenix, who was invited to the lead role, died of a drug overdose before filming began. Working with director Ted Demme, Jonathan’s nephew, and playing the role of Kevin Spacey’s grumpy wife in The Judge (1994) once again demonstrated the actress’ extraordinary comedy gift.
In the film The New Age (1994) by screenwriter and director Michael Tolkien, Davis and her Nude Lunch co-star Peter Weller played an eternally feuding couple of unemployed people from Los Angeles who decided to open a shop to save money to pay for a divorce.