Cynthia Nixon

Plays Miranda Hobbes

Born and raised in Manhattan, Nixon learned early on how to balance a successful career on stage, film and television with the normal lifestyle of a teenager.

The consummate New York actress, Nixon has the unique distinction of having appeared in two Broadway plays at the same time: at the age of 18 she played in both David Rabe's Hurlyburly and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Her list of Broadway theatre credits also includes The Last Night of Ballyhoo; Angels in America; Indiscretions, for which she received a Tony nomination; The Heidi Chronicles; and Philadelphia Story, for which she received a Theatre World Award.

Nixon's off-Broadway and regional theatre credits are numerous and impressive. Typical would be her appearance in the role of Honey in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, in a production Albee directed himself which starred Glenda Jackson and John Lithgow, and for which she won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award.

Nixon made her film debut in Little Darlings in 1980, and has worked with some of the most prominent directors in film and theatre, including Louis Malle, Milos Foreman, Mike Nichols and Robert Altman. She's starred  in the films Amadeus, Prince of the City, Baby's Day Out, The Pelican Brief, Marvin's Room and The Out-of-Towners.

On television, Nixon was seen in Wendy Wasserstein's Kiss-Kiss, Dahlings!; The Love She Sought, with Angela Lansbury; Fifth of July, with Richard Thomas and Swoosie Kurtz; HBO's Tanner 88; The Murder of Mary Phagan, with Jack Lemmon; and Face of a Stranger, with Gena Rowlands and Tyne Daly. Nixon co-starred with Scott Bakula and Eva Marie Saint in the touching family drama, Papa's Angels, a CBS holiday special.

For an actress who has been working for over 20 years and has not even reached her prime, Nixon had enjoyed a certain anonymity in the public eye. It was not until the success of Sex and the City that she could walk down the street and be easily recognised for her popular alter ego Miranda Hobbes.