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Actor

Amy Brenneman

Bio

Possessed with an approachable sensuality, infectious charm and sharp wit, Brenneman is on an undeniable journey to stardom. In 2005, she concluded her final season as star, producer and co-creator of, the smash hit CBS drama series “Judging Amy.” Her role as ‘Judge Amy Gray’ has garnered her two TV Guide Awards, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Emmy Award® nominations and a People’s Choice Award nomination, as well as her most recent nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. Brenneman can currently be seen in the hit ABC drama “Private Practice” co-starring Kate Walsh and Taye Diggs from creator Shonda Rhimes. Brenneman was most recently seen in The Jane Austen Book Club, directed by Robin Swicord, this film is a story about six Californians who start a club to discuss the works of Jane Austen, only to find their relationships -- both old and new -- begin to resemble 21st century versions of her novels. Amy will next be seen in Downloading Nancy, a thriller directed by Johan Renck, co-starring Mario Bello and Jason Patric. This film made its US debut at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Brenneman’s other film credits include Nine Lives, directed by Rodrigo García, looks inside the travails and disappointments of nine women’s lives; Michael Mann’s Heat opposite Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, the Universal thriller Daylight starring opposite Sylvester Stallone, and Neil LaBute’s Your Friends and Neighbors opposite Jason Patric and Ben Stiller. In addition, she starred in the independent film Nevada with Gabrielle Anwar, Angus MacFayden and Kathy Najimy and in The Suburbans opposite Ben Stiller and Robert Loggia. She most recently appeared in Showtime Network’s Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, opposite Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart, Kathy Baker, and Holly Hunter, and was last be seen in the independent feature, opposite Joan Allen and Sam Elliott, Off the Map. Other film credits include Fear opposite Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg, Steven Spielberg’s Casper, Twentieth Century Fox’s romantic comedy Bye Bye Love and October Films’ Lesser Prophets opposite Scott Glenn, Jimmy Smits and Elizabeth Perkins. America first took notice of Brenneman with her Emmy Award®-nominated performance in “NYPD Blue” in the role of ‘Janice Licalsi’. She continued her role on the hit television series for a year as a recurring regular, which again earned her an Emmy® nomination, allowing her the time to do feature film work. She was also a series regular on the CBS critically acclaimed series, “Middle Ages.” Born in New London, Connecticut on June 22nd and raised in the Hartford suburb of Glastonbury, Brenneman stems from a close-knit, traditional family. Her father is an environmental attorney and her mother a superior court judge, and Brenneman follows in a long line of accomplished family members. At the early age of eleven, after singing in the chorus of The Music Man, her interest in performing began to blossom. An ‘A’ student throughout her academic life, she enrolled in Harvard University with the intention of graduating with a B.A. in Comparative Religions. During her freshman year, Brenneman teamed up with a director, a set designer, a composer and a couple of actors to form the Cornerstone Theater Company. This unique company of professional actors took on the task of customizing the classics and taking them to the back roads of America. With each production they would integrate professional actors with local townspeople in some of the most treasured classics such as Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Three Sisters, and Our Town to name just a few. Consuming over five years of her life, Brenneman is very proud of her hard work with the company. She says, “We would adapt a classic to be about that particular community in which we were performing. In one small town in Mississippi, I played Juliet and we cast a young black kid who was a senior in high school to play Romeo. All the Capulets were white and all the Montagues were black. What inevitably happened is that it got really political, really dicey and really fun.” Cornerstone has been celebrated again and again in the national media, including “60 Minutes”, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and American Theatre magazine. Brenneman’s college experience also included a semester abroad in Nepal where she studied sacred dances with an indigenous priest. In doing so she became one of only two or three westerners to learn the dances. She also found time to live in Paris for 7 months where she earned her living as an au pair for two autistic children. Upon completion of her studies at Harvard, Brenneman would continue her work with Cornerstone and in 1990 she moved to New York where she would take a shot at the New York Theater scene. As a result she nabbed juicy roles in “The Learned Ladies,” opposite Jean Stapleton at the CSC Repertory, Mac Wellman’s “Sincerity Forever” at the BACA Downtown, and “The Video Store Owner’s Significant Other.” Additionally Amy has performed at the Yale Repertory Company in the role of St. Joan in Bertolt Brecht’s “St. Joan of the Stockyards” and starred in the Lincoln Center production of “God’s Heart,” directed by Joe Montello (“Love! Valour! Compassion!”).

Appearing as:

Shelly Barnes