Carrie Coon's Rise to Stardom: From ‘The Leftovers’ to ‘The White Lotus’ — “I Have to Fight for Those Parts”

Carrie Coon is undoubtedly one of the most talented and charismatic actresses around. Over the course of more than a decade in Hollywood, she’s wowed audiences in TV shows (The Leftovers, Fargo, The Sinner, The Gilded Age), blockbusters (Avengers, Ghostbusters) and indie movies (The Nest, His Three Daughters) and will next be seen in the highly anticipated third season of the star-studded dark ensemble comedy The White Lotus in 2025.

Here’s a look at how Carrie Coon became the go-to for playing complicated women in a diverse array of movies and shows.

Starting on the stage

Coon is known for her subtlety and quiet intelligence as an actress, and she honed her skills on the stage. After graduating with an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006, the trained actress began appearing in local theatrical productions and wowed audiences when she starred in a Chicago production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 2010. In 2012, she made her Broadway debut reprising her role, and was nominated for a Tony Award. She’s continued to appear onstage throughout her career. 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? proved pivotal in Coon’s professional and personal life. After acting in the play, she began appearing in TV episodes, and in 2014 she made her film debut playing Ben Affleck’s twin sister in the thriller Gone Girl. The play was also where she met her husband, the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright and actor Tracy Letts. They’ve been married since 2013 and have two children, and they’ve frequently worked together on stage and screen. 

Carrie Coon TV shows

After her breakout theatrical role, Coon costarred in the acclaimed drama The Leftovers, playing a woman who loses her husband and children in a mysterious, harrowing event known as “the Sudden Departure.” Coon gave an intense performance as a grieving widow, and the show, which ran from 2014 to 2017, made her an in-demand TV star.

In 2017, Coon played the no-nonsense police chief in the third season of Fargo and received an Emmy nomination for her role. The next year, she costarred with her husband in the second season of The Sinner.

Most recently, Coon can be seen starring in The Gilded Age, a juicy period piece set in 19th-century New York City. The show just earned Coon her second Emmy nomination, and it will be returning for its third season next year. Reflecting on her character, the actress said, “I love that she calls people out on their BS. That’s the most fun, when she really cuts through the social expectations and just calls it how she sees it . . . She’s so uncompromising. She’s so myopic. I love that people don’t like her.”

Carrie Coon movies

In addition to her complex and compulsively watchable TV roles, Coon has also made a name for herself in movies, and has recently moved from a scene-stealing supporting actress to a leading lady.

After Gone Girl, Coon played a real-life journalist in Steven Spielberg’s 2017 period political thriller The Post. The next year, she played supervillian Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Infinity War. The two films couldn't be more different, yet Coon was memorable in both of them. She then appeared in the crime movie Widows in 2018 and returned to the Marvel Universe with an uncredited appearance in Avengers: Endgame in 2019.

2020 brought Coon’s first starring role, in the indie '80s-set drama The Nest. The actress admitted that becoming a top-billed performer wasn’t easy, saying, “When it comes to leading lady parts, what attracts me to the project is that they want me to do it. It’s so rare. I have to fight for those parts.”

In 2021, following the understated domestic discontent of The Nest, Coon hopped back into the big-budget franchise world with her role as the daughter of the late Harold Ramis’ Ghostbusters character in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. 

Carrie Coon’s latest projects

Coon is currently busier than ever at age 43. Earlier this year, she starred in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and her well-reviewed family drama His Three Daughters just landed on Netflix. Coon’s other recent work includes the true crime film Boston Strangler and the dark comedy Another Happy Day. Her latest movie, the indie neo-noir Lake George, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival this summer. 

Coon has proven herself to be one of the few actresses who can move seamlessly between small-scale and large-scale films and give stellar performances in both, and we can’t wait to see her in the new season of The Gilded Age and The White Lotus.

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