Amanda Plummer
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Amanda Michael Plummer was born March 23, 1957 in New York, New York. She is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning American actress. She is the daughter of actors Tammy Grimes and Christopher Plummer.
Plummer made her film debut in the 1981 Western Cattle Annie and Little Britches opposite Burt Lancaster. Working on Broadway, she won the Tony and the Drama Desk award for her performance as Agnes in the 1982 stage production of Agnes of God. She lost the role in the film version to Meg Tilly and stayed in the theater. Some of her stage credits include The Glass Menagerie, You Never Can Tell, and A Taste of Honey. She earned another Tony nomination for her performance in Pygmalion, opposite Peter O'Toole. On television, she earned an Emmy nomination for her recurring role of mentally challenged Alice on L.A. Law.
Plummer's feature film work would consist of playing small, fragile, almost invisible characters who nevertheless leave a big impression. On the big screen, Plummer displayed her silent intensity in the non-speaking role of Ellen James in The World According to Garp (1982). She also created the interesting, if little-seen, character of Dagmar in John Patrick Shanley's Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). Her big film breakthrough came about in 1991 in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King. She played awkward and plain office worker Lydia Sinclair, who inspires the love of a homeless man played by Robin Williams. The next year, she earned her first Emmy award for her role of concentration camp survivor Lusia Weiss in the post-war drama Miss Rose White (1992), a made-for-TV adaptation of an off-Broadway play. In feature films during the late '90s, Plummer often played slightly off-kilter women just on the verge of violent behavior. She was a disturbed sister in So I Married an Axe Murderer and an semi-balanced Castle Rock resident in Needful Things (both 1993). In 1994, she played a partner-in-crime with Tim Roth in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. As the gun-pointing Honey Bunny, Plummer gained a lot of exposure with a minimum of screen time. The next year, she played a serial killer in Michael Winterbottom's Butterfly Kiss (1995).
Returning to television, Plummer earned another Emmy for the role of Professor Theresa Given in a 1996 episode of Showtime's The Outer Limits. For the rest of the '90s, she continued portraying delicately damaged characters in small independent films like Matthew Bright's Freeway (1996) and Peter Cohen's Drunks (1997). She also appeared in the family film A Simple Wish (1997) and lent her voice to the TV series Stories From My Childhood as well as the animated feature Hercules (1997). In 1999, Plummer revisited her earlier days as a horseback rider to play a member of the title harem in Peter Greenaway's bizarre 8 1/2 Women (1999). In 2003, she played Sarah Polley's food-obsessed co-worker in My Life Without Me. Plummer's projects for 2004 included the horror film Satan's Little Helper and Tobe Hooper's Brew.
Credits by Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Filmography
- Red (2007)
- "Battlestar Galactica" (3 episodes, 2006)
- Tma (2005)
- "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (1 episode, 2004)
- Satan's Little Helper (2004)
- Mimic: Sentinel (2003)
- My Life Without Me (2003)
- "Night Visions" (1 episode, 2002)
- Ken Park (2002)
- Shadow Realm (2002)
- Triggermen (2002)
- "For the People" (1 episode, 2002)
- The Last Angel (2002)
- Get a Clue (2002)
- Ilaria Alpi - Il più crudele dei giorni (2002)
- The Gray in Between (2002)
- "The Outer Limits" (2 episodes, 1996-2000)
- Seven Days to Live (2000)
- The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
- The Apartment Complex (1999)
- 8 ½ Women (1999)
- October 22 (1998)
- L.A. Without a Map (1998)
- Hysteria (1998)
- "Stories from My Childhood" (1 episode 1998)
- You Can Thank Me Later (1998)
- American Perfekt (1997)
- A Simple Wish (1997)
- Hercules (1997)
- Hercules (1997)
- "Dark Skies" (1 episode, 1996)
- Don't Look Back (1996)
- "Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man" (1 episode, 1996)
- The Right to Remain Silent (1996)
- The Vampyre Wars (1996)
- Freeway (1996)
- Dead Girl (1996)
- Drunks (1995) The Prophecy (1995)
- Butterfly Kiss (1995)
- The Final Cut (1995)
- Under the Piano (1995)
- Pax (1994)
- Nostradamus (1994)
- Pulp Fiction (1994)
- Whose Child Is This? The War for Baby Jessica (1993)
- Needful Things (1993)
- Last Light (1993)
- So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
- Phone (1993)
- The Sands of Time (1992)
- Miss Rose White (1992)
- Freejack (1992)
- The Lounge People (1992)
- "The Hidden Room" (1 episode, 1991)
- The Fisher King (1991)
- "L.A. Law" (6 episodes, 1989-1990)
- Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
- Gryphon (1990)
- Kojak: None So Blind (1990)
- "Tales from the Crypt" (1 episode, 1989)
- "Miami Vice" (1 episode, 1989)
- The Story of the Dancing Frog (1989)
- Prisoners of Inertia (1989)
- True Blue (1989)
- "The Equalizer" (1 episode, 1988)
- Made in Heaven (1987)
- "Moonlighting" (1 episode, 1987)
- Courtship (1987)
- Riders to the Sea (1987)
- Static (1986)
- The Dollmaker (1984)
- The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)
- Daniel (1983)
- The World According to Garp (1982)
- "ABC Afterschool Specials" (1 episode, 1982)
- Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981)
Awards
- Emmy Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" 2005
- CableACE Award Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries "The Right to Remain Silent" 1996
- Emmy Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series "The Outer Limits" 1995 - 96
- Emmy Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special "Miss Rose White" 1991 - 92
- Drama Desk Award Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play "Agnes of God" 1982
- Outer Critics Circle Award Actress "A Taste of Honey" and "Agnes of God" 1982
- Tony Featured Actress in a Play "Agnes of God" 1982
- Theatre World Award "A Taste of Honey" 1981
