An accomplished Tony-nominated stage actress and a rising star of the screen, Amy Ryan was one of the more talented actresses to make it big in 2007, earning an Oscar nomination for her role in Ben Affleck’s “Gone Baby Gone.”
Ryan hails from Queens, where she was born in 1970 (exact date unknown). She received her training while a student at the New York City High School of Performing Arts and the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center, and joined a national tour of Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” right out of high school. She worked mostly in theatre during the 90s, but made guest appearances on several television shows including a short run on “I’ll Fly Away.” One of her first film credits was a small role in Kenneth Lonergan’s acclaimed drama “You Can Count on Me.” She eventually caught the eye of legendary director Sidney Lumet, who cast her in his TV series “100 Centre Street.”
The busy actress began booking major film roles due to exposure as a cast member of acclaimed series “The Wire” and her Tony nomination for “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 2005. She has been booked solid ever since, with roles in Albert Brooks’s “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” “Capote,” Lumet’s grossly underappreciated “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” alongside Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Dan in Real Life” with Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche, and of course “Gone Baby Gone.” Her performance as a crack-addicted single mother in the latter film was one of the most acclaimed of 2007.
Ryan’s stock is on the rise, and two of her next films are sure to garner her even more attention – Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” with Matt Damon, and Clint Eastwood’s “The Changeling” with Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich.