---
name: "Kate Nelligan"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/kate-nelligan"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "16 March 1950"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 63
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 2
updated: "2026-09-20T06:57:18.546587+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Kate Nelligan

Actor. Born 16 March 1950 in London, Ontario, Canada.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 16 March 1950, London, Ontario, Canada
- **Active:** 1991–1999
- **Also known as:** Patricia Colleen Nelligan, کیت نلیگان
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Average Fi1m score:** 63, as actor, over 2 titles
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Nelligan, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q266467, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625075/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18794

## Streaming the US now

- **Pluto TV:** [*The Cider House Rules*](https://film.one/film/the-cider-house-rules.md) (61)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Kate Nelligan

> Kate Nelligan is a stage actor who arrived in Hollywood as a supporting player and has largely stayed one: exact, watchful and unsentimental, given in the films we have reviewed one good scene at a time and making each of them count.

In *The Prince of Tides* (1991), Kate Nelligan plays Lila Wingo, a mother on a shrimp boat whose husband shouts and who smiles through it and keeps score. That is the performance in a phrase, and it is a good one. She does not raise her voice and she does not visibly suffer, and the family scenes tighten a little whenever she is in them. The film belongs to Nick Nolte, talking his way back through a childhood he has spent his adult life not mentioning. Nelligan is a large part of why the talking is necessary.

She came to film by a long road. Trained at the Bristol Old Vic in the early 1970s, she made her name in London on stage, above all as Susan Traherne in David Hare's *Plenty* in 1978, and Hare has remained the collaborator she returns to. She moved to the United States at the end of that decade and took leads in *Dracula* (1979) and *Eye of the Needle* (1981). By the 1990s she had settled into the kind of part Hollywood gives to actors it trusts with difficult mothers: *Frankie and Johnny* and *The Prince of Tides*, both 1991, and later *The Cider House Rules* (1999). After the mid-1990s she worked less, and her appearances since have been occasional.

The stage shows. She listens to a line before she answers it, and she lands the end of a sentence the way a person does who has had to make it carry to the back of a room. That precision suits hard women, and hard women are what she is mostly asked to play. In *The Cider House Rules*, as Olive Worthington, she gets one good scene, about running a farm with the men gone, and it is one of the few in the orchard hour that does not drift. Lasse Hallström wraps everything around it in autumn light and a warm piano; her scene stays dry.

We should be honest about where *The Prince of Tides* got to us. It was the three children slipping off the dock and holding hands under the water while their parents fight on the bank, and it moved us more than we expected. Nelligan is one of the parents. That is roughly her position in the cinema we have seen her in: the scene is about somebody else, and she is part of the reason it hurts.

"I get to do a lot of dark," she said in 2003, and that is about right. Watch *The Prince of Tides* for Nolte, as we said at the time, and then notice how much of what he cannot say was already said, in a smile, by his mother.

## Biography

Kate Nelligan is a Canadian actress. Born Patricia Colleen Nelligan on 16 March 1950 in London, Ontario, she trained at Glendon College in Toronto and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

She began her professional career in 1972 with the Bristol Old Vic and went on to work with the National Theatre in London. In the 1980s she moved to New York and received four Tony Award nominations for her Broadway performances. Her film roles include Lila Wingo Newbury in *The Prince of Tides* (1991), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and Olive Worthington in *The Cider House Rules* (1999). She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for *Frankie and Johnny* (1991). Nelligan has also appeared in television productions and received Gemini Award nominations for her work in Canadian television.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

- *The Cider House Rules* (1999), Fi1m 61, as Olive Worthington — [page](https://film.one/film/the-cider-house-rules.md)
- *The Prince of Tides* (1991), Fi1m 65, as Lila Wingo Newbury — [page](https://film.one/film/the-prince-of-tides.md)

## Complete filmography (65)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Eleventh Hour* (2008), series, as Gepetto
- *Premonition* (2007), as Joanne
- *In from the Night* (2006), as Vera Miller
- *A Wrinkle in Time* (2003), as Mrs. Which
- *Walter and Henry* (2001), as Elizabeth
- *Blessed Stranger: After Flight 111* (2000), as Kate O'Rourke
- *The Cider House Rules* (1999), as Olive Worthington — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/the-cider-house-rules.md)
- *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* (1999), series, as Sylvia Quinn
- *Swing Vote* (1999), as Justice Sara Marie Brandwynne
- *Love Is Strange* (1999), as Kathryn McClain
- *Boy Meets Girl* (1998), as Mrs. Jones
- *Stolen Moments* (1998), as Narrator (voice)
- *U.S. Marshals* (1998), as Walsh
- *Rape: A Crime of War* (1997), as Narrator
- *Calm at Sunset* (1996), as Margaret Pfeiffer
- *Captive Heart: The James Mink Story* (1996), as Elizabeth Mink
- *Up Close & Personal* (1996), as Joanna Kennelly
- *How to Make an American Quilt* (1995), as Constance Saunders
- *Margaret's Museum* (1995), as Catherine MacNeil
- *A Mother's Prayer* (1995), as Sheila Walker
- *Million Dollar Babies* (1994), series, as Helena Reid
- *Wolf* (1994), as Charlotte Randall
- *Spoils of War* (1994), as Elise
- *Fatal Instinct* (1993), as Lana Ravine
- *Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story* (1993), as Stephanie Chadford
- *Liar, Liar* (1993), as Susan Miori
- *The Diamond Fleece* (1992), Actor
- *Heritage Minutes: Emily Murphy* (1992), as Emily Murphy
- *Terror Stalks the Class Reunion* (1992), as Kay
- *The Prince of Tides* (1991), as Lila Wingo Newbury — Fi1m 65, [page](https://film.one/film/the-prince-of-tides.md)
- *Shadows and Fog* (1991), as Eve
- *Old Times* (1991), Actor
- *Frankie and Johnny* (1991), as Cora
- *Performance* (1991), series, as Kate
- *Golden Fiddles* (1991), series, as Anne Balfour
- *Heritage Minutes* (1991), series, as Emily Murphy
- *White Room* (1990), as Jane
- *Love & Hate: The Story of Colin and Joanne Thatcher* (1989), as JoAnn Thatcher
- *Kojak: The Price of Justice* (1987), as Kitty
- *Control* (1987), as Sarah Howell
- *Eleni* (1985), as Eleni
- *Without a Trace* (1983), as Susan Selky
- *American Playhouse* (1982), series, as Barbara Hoyle
- *Victims* (1982), as Ruth Hession
- *Eye of the Needle* (1981), as Lucy
- *Mr. Patman* (1981), as Peabody
- *Therese Raquin* (1980), series, as Thérèse
- *Dreams of Leaving* (1980), as Charlotte
- *Dracula* (1979), as Lucy Seward
- *Measure for Measure* (1979), as Isabella
- *The BBC Television Shakespeare* (1978), series, as Isabella
- *Licking Hitler* (1978), as Anna Seaton
- *The Sunday Drama* (1977), series, as Ann
- *Do as I Say* (1977), as Hilary
- *Bethune* (1977), as Frances Bethune
- *The Lady of the Camellias* (1976), as Marguerite Gautier
- *The Count of Monte-Cristo* (1975), as Mercédès
- *The Romantic Englishwoman* (1975), as Isabel
- *The Arcata Promise* (1974), as Laura
- *The Four Beauties* (1973), as Christie
- *The Edwardians* (1972), series, as Alice Keppel
- *Country Matters* (1972), series, as Christie Davenport
- *Play for Today* (1970), series, as Hilary
- *Hallmark Hall of Fame* (1951), series, as Margaret Pfeiffer, Vera Miller
- *Human Cargo*, series, Actor

## Gallery

- ![Kate Nelligan](https://film.one/media/person/1248134/gallery-d4fe20077054.webp) Kate Nelligan — PBS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Kate_Nelligan_in_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Raquin.webp?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Kate Nelligan](https://film.one/media/person/1248134/gallery-0d6f91f7e922.jpg) Kate Nelligan — Image via TMDB
- ![Kate Nelligan](https://film.one/media/person/1248134/gallery-da2ac7803ca5.jpg) Kate Nelligan — Image via TMDB
- ![Kate Nelligan](https://film.one/media/person/1248134/gallery-12c4f911f043.jpg) Kate Nelligan — Image via TMDB
- ![Kate Nelligan](https://film.one/media/person/1248134/gallery-d0f1b82f16ed.jpg) Kate Nelligan — Image via TMDB
- ![Kate Nelligan](https://film.one/media/person/1248134/gallery-47d3008eb275.jpg) Kate Nelligan — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1992: Best Supporting Actress (nominated), for *The Prince of Tides*

### Other awards — 1 won, 4 nominated

- Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play 1989: Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (nominated)
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play 1988: Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play (nominated)
- Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play 1984: Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (nominated)
- Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play 1983: Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (nominated)
- Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress 1978: Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/kate-nelligan