Dianne Wiest

Diane Wiest began her stage career with a Shakespearean touring troupe before appearing with the New York Shakespeare Festival in Ashes and at Yale Repertory Theatre in Hedda Gabler. She made her Broadway debut in Solitaire/Double Solitaire in 1971. She subsequently spent four years with Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., appearing in productions including Our Town, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Dybbuk, The Lower Depths and Heartbreak House. In 1976, she appeared in the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference productions of Pirates and A History of the American Film, and later performed in Agamemnon at the Public Theater. She originated the role of Agnes in Agnes of God in 1979.

Wiest appeared in Tina Howe's Museum and The Art of Dining, winning multiple theater awards for The Art of Dining. Her later stage credits include Frankenstein (1981), Othello (1982), Beyond Therapy (1982), A Kind of Alaska (1984), Serenading Louie (1984) and Hunting Cockroaches (1987). During the 1990s, she appeared in In the Summer House, Square One, The Shawl and One Flea Spare. Her later theater work included Salome (2003), Memory House (2005), Third, The Seagull and All My Sons. In 2016, she starred as Winnie in Yale Repertory Theatre's production of Happy Days, reprising the role in Brooklyn in 2017 and Los Angeles in 2019.

Wiest made her early film appearances in It's My Turn (1980) and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982). She appeared in Footloose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Radio Days (1987), September (1987), The Lost Boys (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City (1988). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994). Other major film credits include Parenthood (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Little Man Tate (1991), The Birdcage (1996), Dan in Real Life (2007), Synecdoche, New York (2008), Rabbit Hole (2010), Darling Companion (2012), Let Them All Talk (2020) and I Care a Lot (2020).

On television, Wiest appeared in Road to Avonlea (1997), winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. She subsequently starred in The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn (1999) and The 10th Kingdom (2000). From 2000 to 2002, she portrayed District Attorney Nora Lewin on Law & Order, also appearing in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In 2008, she joined the cast of In Treatment as Gina Toll, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and receiving another nomination for the series' second season in 2009.

From 2021 to 2023, Wiest starred as Mariam McLusky in the Paramount+ crime drama series Mayor of Kingstown. In 2025, she was announced as a cast member of Only Murders in the Building, joining the series as Lorraine, the grieving widow of doorman Lester.