Melissa Leo

American actress

Also known as: Melissa Chessington Leo

Written by Pat Bauer

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2025 • Article History

Quick Facts

In full:: Melissa Chessington Leo

Born:: September 14, 1960, New York City, New York, U.S. (age 64)

Awards And Honors:: Emmy Award (2013); Academy Award (2011); Golden Globe Award (2011); Academy Award (2011): Actress in a Supporting Role; Emmy Award (2013): Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series; Golden Globe Award (2011): Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):: "Furlough" (2018); "Dolly Parton's Heartstrings" (2019); "Burn Country" (2016); "The Alphabet Killer" (2008); "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (2004); "Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best" (2011); "Last Summer in the Hamptons" (1995); "Welcome to the Rileys" (2010); "Deadtime Stories" (1986); "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (2005); "Don McKay" (2009); "Unlovable" (2018); "Mr. Woodcock" (2007); "Louie" (2012); "Treme" (2010–2013); "Scarlett" (1994); "Righteous Kill" (2008); "Spenser: For Hire" (1987); "Dwegons and Leprechauns" (2014); "Stephanie Daley" (2006); "Snowden" (2016); "The Fighter" (2010); "Cold Case" (2007); "I'm Dying Up Here" (2017–2018); "Against the Law" (1990); "I Believe in America" (2007); "BoJack Horseman" (2014–2016); "Dear Lemon Lima" (2009); "Streetwalkin'" (1985); "Nasty Boys" (1990); "Veronica Mars" (2004); "The Big Short" (2015); "Conviction" (2010); "Queen of the Lot" (2010); "Flight" (2012); "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn" (2014); "Runaway" (2005); "Frozen River" (2008); "One Night" (2007); "Miami Vice" (1988); "Black Irish" (2007); "The Equalizer 2" (2018); "The Equalizer" (2014); "Confess" (2005); "The Space Between" (2010); "The Ballad of Little Jo" (1993); "The Most Hated Woman in America" (2017); "True Adolescents" (2009); "The 24 Hour Woman" (1999); "Mildred Pierce" (2011); "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993–1997); "Always" (1985); "Oblivion" (2013); "Prisoners" (2013); "Criminal Minds" (2007); "Fear of Fiction" (2000); "Shark" (2006); "Lullaby" (2008); "Olympus Has Fallen" (2013); "Ball Don't Lie" (2008); "The Ever After" (2014); "A Time of Destiny" (1988); "Why Stop Now?" (2012); "Everybody's Fine" (2009); "Racing Daylight" (2007); "The L Word" (2005); "Red State" (2011); "All My Children" (1984–1988); "American Gun" (2005); "The Parting Glass" (2018); "I Know This Much Is True" (2020); "Greta" (2009); "Venice/Venice" (1992); "The House Is Burning" (2006); "Veronika Decides to Die" (2009); "Stephanie's Image" (2009); "Wayward Pines" (2015–2016); "Broad City" (2016); "Gideon Oliver" (1989); "Under the Bridge" (1996); "The Cake Eaters" (2007); "Lost Revolution" (2011); "Hollywood Dreams" (2006); "Charlie Countryman" (2013); "21 Grams" (2003); "Code of Ethics" (1998); "The Equalizer" (1985); "The Ashram" (2018); "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (2005); "Bottled Up" (2013); "London Has Fallen" (2016); "The Limbo Room" (2006); "Seven Days in Utopia" (2011); "Legacy" (1998); "Francine" (2012); "The Dry Land" (2010); "Santa Mesa" (2008); "Law & Order" (1993–2008); "Hide and Seek" (2005); "Immaculate Conception" (1992); "The Young Riders" (1989–1990); "From Other Worlds" (2004); "Novitiate" (2017)

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Melissa Leo (born September 14, 1960, New York City, New York, U.S.) is an American actress who is known for her naturalistic portrayals of tough, flinty women dealing with difficult situations.

Leo became enamoured with acting when as a small child she was enrolled in the Peter Schumann Bread and Puppet Theater Workshop. She later studied at the Brattleboro Center for the Performing Arts and at London’s Mount View Theatre School. After two years at the State University of New York at Purchase, she left to begin an acting career. Leo won a role on the soap opera All My Children in 1984. She was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1985, and she continued to make occasional appearances on the show until 1988.

Leo’s first movie performances occurred in 1985 in the minor films Always and Streetwalkin’. She later appeared in the horror anthology film Deadtime Stories (1986), the melodrama A Time of Destiny (1988), and Maggie Greenwald’s feminist western The Ballad of Little Jo (1993). She had guest parts on various TV series and was a cast member in the first season of The Young Riders (1989–92). Leo’s breakthrough came with her portrayal of a tough no-nonsense detective—the only woman on the squad—on the first five seasons of the critically acclaimed series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), a role she reprised for the TV movie Homicide: The Movie (2000).

Empty movie theater and blank screen (theatre, motion pictures, cinema).

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Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia

*The Fighter*(From left, foreground) Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo, and Christian Bale in *The Fighter* (2010), directed by David O. Russell.

Leo won notice for her performance as the wife of a former convict (played by Benicio Del Toro) in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003). She attracted favourable mention for her role in Tommy Lee Jones’s The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005). Leo’s performance as a single mother in desperate financial straits who becomes a smuggler of illegal refugees in Frozen River (2008) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for best actress, and she won both the Golden Globe Award and the Oscar for best supporting actress for her merciless portrayal of the domineering mother of an aspiring boxer in The Fighter (2010). Her later films included the action thriller The Equalizer (2014) and its sequel (2018) as well as Oliver Stone’s Snowden (2016), a biopic about an American intelligence contractor who revealed secret information-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Leo continued to appear on television and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role as a friend of the title character (played by Kate Winslet) in the TV miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011). She was a cast member of the TV series Treme (2010–13), about New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Leo later played the fiendish Nurse Pam in the science fiction TV serial Wayward Pines (2015–16), and she starred in the series I’m Dying up Here (2017–18), about the 1970s stand-up comedy scene in Los Angeles. She later appeared in the miniseries I Know This Much Is True (2020), an adaptation of Wally Lamb’s 1998 novel.

Pat Bauer The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica