Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian film, television and stage actress. A seven-time AACTA Award winner, she won two BAFTA Awards for her role as Sybylla Melvin in the 1979 film My Brilliant Career, and received Academy Award nominations for A Passage to India (1984) and Husbands and Wives (1992). She is also a three-time Emmy Award winner; for Serving in Silence (1995), the title role in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), and The Starter Wife (2007).
As a student at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Davis played opposite Mel Gibson in Romeo and Juliet. Her other stage credits include Piaf (Perth 1980), Insignificance (London 1982), the title role in Hedda Gabler (Sydney 1986), and Hapgood (Los Angeles 1989). Her other film roles include Winter of Our Dreams (1981), Heatwave (1983), High Tide (1987), Impromptu (1991), Naked Lunch (1991), Absolute Power (1997), Deconstructing Harry (1997), The Break-up (2006), The Eye of the Storm (2011) and The Dressmaker (2015).

Biography

Davis was born in Perth, Western Australia, and had a strict Catholic upbringing. She was educated at Loreto Convent and the Western Australian Institute of Technology and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1977. She has been married to actor and fellow NIDA graduate Colin Friels since 1984. They have two children, son Jack and daughter Charlotte.

Best films