Renowned character actress Margo Martindale has crafted a brilliant resume on both the big and small screens, dazzling audiences for over 30 years.
Renowned character actor Margo Martindale has crafted a brilliant resume on both the big and small screen, dazzling audiences for over 30 years. The performer has worked with some of the best-of-the-best in Hollywood, appearing opposite cinema greats like Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Clint Eastood, and Julia Roberts throughout her illustrious career. Martindale has showcased her outstanding talent countless times and is never afraid to embrace a challenging or edgy role; the actress famously starred as a widely amusing fictionalized version of herself in the popular Netflix original series BoJack Horseman, where she is always introduced as "character actress Margo Martindale."
The recipient of prestigious accolades like multiple Primetime Emmys, Critics’ Choice Television Awards, and a Gracie Award, Martindale has consistently entertained viewers with her commanding on-screen presence and endearing attitude. The performer has gone on to achieve widespread praise and adoration with impressive roles in shows like Justifiedand The Americans and in lauded films such as August: Osage County and Million Dollar Baby, proving that it’s never too late to find success and satisfaction in your career. Let’s take a look at some of Margo Martindale’s best performances.
In George Miller’s 1992 drama Lorenzo’s Oil, Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte star as Michaela and Augusto Odone, devoted parents to their young son Lorenzo who go to extreme lengths in order to find a controversial treatment for his adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) diagnosis. In the emotionally-driven picture, Margo Martindale appears as the grieving and outspoken Wendy Gimble, a mother who is experiencing similar heartache to Michaela and Augusto and offers the couple comfort and kind words during their desperate quest to find a cure. The drama is the first of three films Martindale shared the screen with Sarandon in, and was one of the character actress’ first major roles in her colorful Hollywood career.
The 1994 comedy-drama Nobody’s Fool features silver screens icon Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy, and tells the story of 60-year-old Donald “Sully” Sullivan, a stubborn degenerate who avoids any and all adult responsibilities while enjoying a laid-back attitude to life. Sully finds his breezy existence complicated when his estranged son and grandchild show up at his door searching for help.
Margo Martindale joins the sensational cast as small town bartender Birdy, a lively woman who engaged in playful banter with Sully, with the duo wisecracking with one another at the local Iron Horse Saloon. When discussing what it was like working with the cinema legend, Martindale revealed, “"We didn't connect big-time — until we did reshoots and he'd seen the movie. Then he said, 'Can I come sit in your dressing room?' From then on, we'd talk and talk, about theater and the business and all kinds of stuff. He was such an adorable man."
For Netflix’s hilarious but endlessly dark animated dramedy BoJack Horseman, Margo Martindale appeared in one of her most light-hearted roles yet: as a hot-headed, criminally insane fictionalized version of herself. Lovingly referred to as “Character Actress Margo Martindale,” the star’s on-screen persona is a gun-toting mastermind with an affinity for mayhem who goes along with all of BoJack’s dangerous schemes.
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The actress expressed how fun it is portraying a spoof of yourself and how much she loves it, telling IndieWire, “I’m bonkers about it. Some girl stopped me yesterday. “I said, ‘What, do you recognize me from my cartoon?’ She said, ‘Well, I knew who you were.’ I was like, ‘Wow.’ It’s kind of a culty, wonderful thing.” Martindale was a recurring character on the series, guest-starring multiple times through its successful six-season run.
The great Clint Eastwood directed and co-starred in the Oscar-winning 2004 sports drama Million Dollar Baby, in which Hilary Swank portrays dark horse amateur boxer Maggie Fitzgerald, who finds support and motivation on her quest to become a professional athlete in her gruff but gifted boxing trainer Frankie Dunn.
Maggie finds a parental figure and comforting presence in Frankie, as the young woman is at odds with her own selfish and cruel mother Earline Fitzgerald (Margo Martindale), who does not support her daughter’s inspiring ambitions and constantly brings her down. Despite her part being brief in the picture, Martindale delivered a powerful performance that showcased her impeccable range as the deplorable Earline, proving to audiences everywhere there’s no role too big or small that she can’t truly make her own.
The crime drama series Sneaky Pete stars the dynamic Giovanni Ribisi as the newly released convict Marius Josipović, a conman on the run from a group of brutal gangsters who decides to assume the identity of his cellmate Pete Murphy in hopes of staying under the radar. In the gripping Amazon Prime Video show, Margo Martindale appears as Murphy family matriarch and bail bondswoman Audrey Bernhardt, who eventually becomes convinced that Marius is in fact her long-lost grandson Pete despite initial reservations.
The actress is once again exceptional as the protective Audrey, with The Hollywood Reporter stating she “is in a class by herself, as evidenced by her notable roles in Justified and The Americans…You know immediately that Martindale’s Audrey is very dubious about long-lost Pete showing up on her doorstep.”
Margo Martindale appeared alongside cinema greats like Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Ewan McGregor in the 2013 tragicomedy August: Osage County, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy Letts play of the same name. The engrossing film centers on the Westons, a small-town rural Oklahoma family that are reunited after their patriarch tragically passed away, resulting in multiple generations returning to their homestead with conflicting personalities and opinions.
Martindale appears as the assertive and boisterous Mattie Fae Aiken, Violet Weston’s (Streep) younger sister who attempts to provide comfort for her grieving kin. On tackling the dimensional character, the seasoned star stated, “I love the complexity of the layers of secrets, and just the layers of human behavior that all comes out on top with this loud force of nature. What is underneath all of that is what interests me.”
The critically-lauded FX period spy drama The Americans follows Soviet KGB intelligence officers Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, spies who are tasked with posing as a suburban married couple in Virginia during the Reagan administration. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys headline the riveting series set at the height of the Cold War, portraying the married agents moonlighting as an all-American family while secretly performing covert operations for the KGB.
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Margo Martindale won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actress when she took on the role of Claudia, the resilient handler of the Jennings who has decades of experience with the KGB and frequently goes toe-to-toe with the similarly headstrong Elizabeth. She's simultaneously comforting but also menacingly intimidating when she wants to be.
Chronicling the history surrounding the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s as seen through the eyes of powerful women of the era, the 2020 historical drama miniseries Mrs. America depicts the plights of prominent activists like Phyllis Schlafly, Gloria Steinem, and Shirley Chisholm during the monumental period in time.
Margo Martindale joined talented actors like Cate Blanchett and Elizabeth Banks for the absorbing program, starring as US congresswoman and social/feminist activist Bella Abzug, who went on to co-found the National Women’s Political Caucus and served as an influential force for the movement. The series earned rave reviews from critics, with The New York Times declaring it “breathtaking” and “a meticulously created and observed mural that finds the germ of contemporary America in the striving of righteously mad women."
Touted as one of her finest and most influential roles to date, Margo Martindale rightfully earned a Primetime Emmy Award when she portrayed crime family matriarch Mags Bennett in the second season of the FX smash-hit series Justified. The Harlan County drug lord served as the conniving nemesis to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, who finds himself at the center of a bitter rivalry between his family and the Bennetts as he fights to put an end to their corruption.
Martindale is absolutely phenomenal as the tough-as-nails Mags, showing no fear or mercy as she expands her marijuana empire into enemy territory, attracting the unwanted attention of Givens. After receiving her Emmy nomination, the actress expressed how she hoped it signified more opportunities for older women in the industry, having said, “People really identify with this character [Mags Bennett] and I think it's because it is a character that is powerful and older and extremely mean."