Hope Davis Biography
Born: March 23, 1964
Displaying a sort of weary Botticelli beauty and a crisp brand of intelligence, Hope Davis has made a name for herself portraying good women wronged by bad men. Playing such characters in her two breakthrough films, The_Daytrippers and Next_Stop_Wonderland, Davis displayed a remarkable blend of lovable bitterness and cynical charm, endearing herself to legions of art house filmgoers who recognized an unmistakable ring of truth in her performances.
Born in Englewood, NJ, Davis had a childhood that was notable in part for her friendship with her neighbor across the street, Mira_Sorvino. Davis' first brush with acting came when the two girls -- then eight or nine -- wrote a play and performed it for their neighbors. The actress' next encounter with fame came some years later, in the rather dubious form of her bit part as one of Billy_Baldwin's used-and-abused girlfriends in the 1990 film Flatliners. Following a bit role as a French ticket agent in the same year's Home_Alone, Davis had yet another dubious brush with fame in Kiss of Death (1995), in a role memorable for the sole reason that it required Davis to be bench-pressed by co-star Nicolas Cage.
The following year brought with it more auspicious work in The_Daytrippers, an independent comedy in which Davis played the suspicious wife of philandering Stanley_Tucci. Co-starring Parker_Posey, Liev_Schreiber, and Anne_Meara, the film was a hit on the independent circuit and Davis was next seen in Michael Lindsay-Hogg's Guy, another small yet critically acclaimed venture. After a bit part in the Ellen DeGeneres flop Mr._Wrong (also 1996), Davis had a substantial role in Bart_Freundlich's 1997 drama The Myth of Fingerprints. Despite a stellar cast, including Blythe_Danner, Noah_Wyle, Julianne_Moore, and Roy_Scheider, the film did almost no box office and met with very mixed reviews. Davis followed it with another independent feature, The_Impostors (1998), which was directed, written, produced, and starred in by her Daytrippers co-star Stanley_Tucci. Unfortunately, like Fingerprints, the film was a relative failure despite an excellent cast and strong director. However, Davis subsequently struck indie gold that same year with her starring role in Brad_Anderson's Next_Stop_Wonderland. Critics drooled over her performance as Erin, a nurse recovering from a major -- and bitterly hilarious -- breakup with her activist boyfriend (played with joyful loathsomeness by Philip_Seymour_Hoffman). The actress managed to make a potentially cold and unsympathetic character into someone the audience could relate to and support, an achievement that Hollywood chose to reward by placing her in a substantial role in the 1999 Jeff_Bridges/Tim_Robbins thriller Arlington_Road. She gained additional exposure that year in Mumford, Lawrence_Kasdan's loopy comedy about a small-town psychiatrist with a past. A few more small films followed (most notable among them was Stanley_Tucci's Joe_Gould's_Secret) before Davis was cast as Jack_Nicholson's estranged daughter in Alexander_Payne's About_Schmidt in 2002. Despite some unfavorable reviews, the film was a relative success, and a high-profile one at that, thanks to Nicholson's Best Actor Oscar nomination. Davis followed her turn in that film with a stellar performance in American_Splendor (2003), Shari_Springer_Berman and Robert_Pulcini's part-documentary, part-feature film about the underground comic book artist Harvey_Pekar, played onscreen by Paul_Giamatti. Cast as Pekar's wife, the highly neurotic Joyce, Davis pulled off a skillful performance that managed to prevent Joyce's quirks from disintegrating into caricature, and was undoubtedly one of the reasons that American_Splendor won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Festival. Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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