Raven-haired
Julianna Margulies may have become an award-winning TV star on
NBC's phenomenally successful ER in the 1990s, but she
was ready to exit the series to pursue movies and theater full
time by decade's end. Born in Spring Valley, NY, Margulies spent
part of her childhood living abroad before settling back in her
hometown for a bohemian life with her free-spirit mother. Though
she earned a B.A. in art history from Sarah Lawrence College,
Margulies performed in college plays and decided to pursue an
acting career. Margulies landed her first movie role in 1991,
playing a prostitute in the Steven Seagal flick Out for Justice.
With no more movie roles forthcoming, Julianna
Margulies made a
living with theater work and TV guest star stints on Law and Order
and
Homicide
in the early '90s. Margulies subsequently landed a role in the pilot
for Michael Crichton's new hospital drama ER in 1994, but her character
was slated for death after that single episode. Due to a positive
audience response, however, Margulies' compassionate Nurse Hathaway
survived
the pilot. During her six seasons on the most popular TV drama of
the 1990s, Margulies won the Emmy and the SAG Award and became
a perennial
nominee. Buoyed by her TV fame, Margulies returned to films during
her hiatuses, starring as the would-be victim of Bill Paxton's Irish
con in Traveler (1996), a POW alongside Glenn Close and Cate Blanchett
in the ensemble drama Paradise Road (1997), and as Matthew McConaughey's
girlfriend in Richard Linklater's Western-esque bank robber saga
The Newton Boys (1998). Continuing to avoid glossy big budget
Hollywood
fare in favor of a more independent sensibility, Julianna
Margulies also appeared in Boaz Yakin's A Price
Above Rubies (1998) and Gurinder Chadha's
multiethnic Thanksgiving tale What's Cooking? (2000). Margulies
finally took on
a blockbuster of sorts when she voiced one of the pre-historic reptiles
in the animated Dinosaur (2000). Despite an offer that would have
made her one of the highest paid actresses on TV, Margulies announced
in
2000 that six years of ER was enough. While Hathaway departed to
a future with George Clooney's Dr. Ross, Margulies moved back
to New
York to hit the off-Broadway stage with Donald Sutherland in +Ten
Unknowns (2001). Julianna Margulies returned to the small-screen
for the female-centric
version of the King Arthur legend The Mists of Avalon, before appearing
in The Man from Elysian Fields, and opposite Pierce Brosnan in the
drama Evelyn. After an appearance in the horror film Ghost Ship,
Margulies would not appear in another widely released motion
picture until she
landed one of the main parts in the 2006 summer phenomenon known
simply as Snakes on a Plane. Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
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