Christine Baranski

Christine Jane Baranski is an American actress known for her work across stage, film, and television. She gained widespread recognition for her role as Maryann Thorpe in the sitcom Cybill, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. She is also prominent for portraying attorney Diane Lockhart in the legal drama series The Good Wife and its spin-off The Good Fight, as well as Agnes van Rhijn in the period drama series The Gilded Age. Her recurring performance as Dr. Beverly Hofstadter on The Big Bang Theory further added to her television achievements.

Baranski was born on May 2, 1952, in Buffalo, New York, to Virginia and Lucien Baranski, who edited a Polish-language newspaper. Raised in a Polish and Catholic neighborhood in Cheektowaga, New York, her grandparents had been stage actors in Poland before immigrating to the United States. She attended high school at Villa Maria Academy, where she served as class president and salutatorian. She went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York City, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1974.

Her theatrical career began off-Broadway in productions such as Coming Attractions and the original 1983 off-Broadway staging of Sunday in the Park with George. She made her Broadway debut in Hide & Seek in 1980. Baranski won two Tony Awards for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her roles as Charlotte in The Real Thing in 1984 and Chris Gorman in Rumors in 1989. Her other notable Broadway credits include Hurlyburly, The House of Blue Leaves, and Boeing Boeing. In 2002, she played Mrs. Lovett in the Kennedy Center's production of Sweeney Todd, winning a Helen Hayes Award.

In film, Baranski has appeared in a wide variety of comedy, drama, and musical roles. Her feature credits include Reversal of Fortune, The Ref, The Birdcage, Cruel Intentions, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Chicago, and Into the Woods. She played Tanya Chesham-Leigh in the musical hit Mamma Mia! and its sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and voiced a character in the animated film Trolls.

On television, following her award-winning turn on Cybill, Baranski appeared on shows including Frasier, Welcome to New York, Happy Family, and Ghost Whisperer. From 2009 to 2019, her recurring role in The Big Bang Theory earned four Emmy nominations. She starred as Diane Lockhart on The Good Wife from 2009 to 2016, receiving six Emmy nominations, and continued the role in The Good Fight from 2017 to 2022, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 2022, she began portraying Agnes van Rhijn in HBO's The Gilded Age.

Off screen, Baranski was married to actor Matthew Cowles from October 1983 until his death in May 2014, and they had two daughters. Known for frequently playing sophisticated and highly educated upper-class women, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2018.