Leading lady Connie Britton has delivered so many notable character portrayals over the years that it’s challenging to keep track of them all. This fact is especially heartening since she has played many of them since turning 40 in an industry that tends to worship youth. At 55, Britton is still going strong.
Britton was born Constance Elaine Womack in Boston, Massachusetts, and started acting by performing in plays at her high school. While attending Dartmouth College she majored in Asian studies with a concentration in Chinese and spent a summer studying at the Beijing Normal University. She moved to New York City after graduating and spent two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre learning under Sanford Meisner, the famed developer of the Meisner technique approach to acting.
Britton began building her career in the mid-1990s with her feature film debut in the comedy-drama “The Brothers McMullen.” She then had a recurring role on the ABC sitcom “Ellen,” co-starred in “Spin City” (another ABC sitcom), and appeared in the films “No Looking Back,” “The Next Big Thing,” and “Looking for Kitty.” She also went on to have recurring roles in “The West Wing” and “24.”
In 2006, Britton landed what has become one of her most widely recognized roles: Tami Taylor, the wife of and voice of reason for Coach Taylor on the sports drama series “Friday Night Lights.” She first played the role in the 2004 film of the same name. For her role in the show, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2010 and 2011 and won a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 2010.
In 2011, Britton played another notable role in the FX horror drama “American Horror Story.” For her portrayal of Vivien Harmon, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.
In 2012, Britton stepped into another iconic role, that of country singer Rayna Jaymes in the popular music drama series “Nashville.” For a fourth time, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award, and she also received her first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
Since then, Britton has been nominated for yet another Golden Globe Award for her role as Debra Newell in the Bravo true crime anthology series Dirty John and has most recently starred in the 2022 films “Breaking” and “Luckiest Girl Alive.”
Britton also devotes time to volunteer work. On April 2, 2014, she became the 10th Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Development Programme, the anti-poverty agency of the UN. She focuses her advocacy efforts on eradicating extreme poverty, empowering women, and fighting exclusion.