Judy Davis is especially good at making prickly, anxious women worth listening to. We rate her for the intelligence and acerbic humour she brings to difficult company, even in a supporting part.
Fi1m perspective
Judy Davis can make a brittle, anxious character funny without asking us to dismiss her. We can laugh at the woman's behaviour and still take her unhappiness seriously. As Audrey Taylor in Barton Fink (1991), she gives the Coens' film a steadiness we welcome. Their elaborate contrivances benefit from having someone this alert within them.
We were unsettled by Barton Fink because its writer's professed concern for ordinary people does so little to help him listen to them. Davis belongs in its comedy without making Audrey merely another joke at his expense. We recommend it, with a reservation about how much pleasure the Coens take in showing us their cleverness.
The early leads gave her more room: Sybylla Melvyn in My Brilliant Career (1979), then Adela Quested in A Passage to India (1984). The first brought her to prominence; the second brought international attention. By the early 1990s she was working with Woody Allen, the Coens and David Cronenberg, and the distinction between lead and supporting actor had become less useful in describing her appeal. Audrey sits alongside the two Joan roles in Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (1991) and Sally in Husbands and Wives (1992).
Brittleness is not enough by itself, and we would not recommend a film simply because it has given her someone difficult to play. Sally's troubled marriage in Husbands and Wives gives her intensity something specific to work on. Her Judy Garland in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) calls on a different skill: precise impersonation that still allows for emotional complexity.
Selective later film work brought Molly Dunnage in The Dressmaker (2015), another sharp-tongued supporting role. We would still start with Barton Fink. Give Audrey some of the attention its writer is so eager to claim.
Biography
Judy Davis is an Australian actress. She was born on 23 April 1955 in Perth, Western Australia, and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1977.
Davis has appeared in films including Barton Fink (1991) as Audrey Taylor, Naked Lunch (1991) as Joan Frost, Husbands and Wives (1992) as Sally, Deconstructing Harry (1997) as Lucy, Absolute Power (1997) as Gloria Russell, Marie Antoinette (2006) as the Comtesse de Noailles, The Break-Up (2006) as Marilyn Dean, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013) as G.H. Jibsen, The Dressmaker (2015) as Molly Dunnage, and To Rome with Love (2012) as Phyllis. She has also appeared in the series Ratched (2020) as Betsy Bucket.
She has received nine AACTA Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, and was nominated for two Academy Awards.
