Kathleen Chalfant

Kathleen Chalfant began her theater career in the 1970s, working as a production coordinator at Playwrights Horizons. Her work there began with Demons: A Possession by Robert Karmon. She made her Off-Broadway acting debut in Cowboy Pictures in June 1974 and has since appeared in more than three dozen Off-Broadway productions.

Chalfant made her official Broadway debut in Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress (Featured Role – Play) in 1993. In 1998, she played Vivian Bearing in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, earning the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Obie and Lucille Lortel awards for her performance. She won a second Obie Award in 2003 for her performance in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.

In 2015, Chalfant appeared in the Women's Project Theater production of Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl and portrayed Rose Kennedy in the Nora's Playhouse production of Rose by Laurence Leamer. In 2018, she read T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets at the Bard SummerScape Festival as part of a performance featuring choreography by Pam Tanowitz, music by Kaija Saariaho and images by Brice Marden. She received the Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018.

Chalfant's screen credits include the documentary feature film The People Speak (2009), which incorporated dramatic and musical performances based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Her feature film roles have included Isn't It Delicious and Kinsey (2004). On television, she has played recurring roles in House of Cards, Law & Order, Rescue Me and The Guardian. She also portrayed Margaret Butler in the Showtime series The Affair.

In 2024, Chalfant starred in the film Familiar Touch, earning the Orizzonti Award for Best Actress and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress.