Christine Lahti (born April 4, 1950) is an American actress.
Career
After college, Lahti headed to New York City, where she worked as a waitress and did commercials. Her breakthrough movie was
…And Justice for All (1979) with
Al Pacino. After starring in a few hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, Lahti chose to be primarily in films in which she wants to act, rather than take roles in bigger films, and she is adamant about spending time with her three children. She has also focused on television, beginning with her role in the 1979 made-for-TV adaptation of
The Executioner's Song. She appeared on
Broadway in
Wendy Wasserstein's seriocomic play,
The Heidi Chronicles.
Lahti received an Academy Award nomination for
Best Supporting Actress for
Swing Shift in 1984 and won an Academy Award for
Best Short Film, Live Action for
Lieberman in Love (1995), in which she starred and directed.
She won an
Emmy and a
Golden Globe for her role in
Chicago Hope. When she won her Golden Globe in 1998, she was in the bathroom, which was highly publicized in the press. She later made it a point to be good-humored about the incident, usually poking fun at herself at other awards shows.
In 2001, her first directorial film,
My First Mister, was released. Starring
Leelee Sobieski and
Albert Brooks, the movie debuted with good reviews. In DVD commentary she applauds the work of her cast and crew, remarking "
[1] was very lucky to have such a wonderful crew..." She did feel regret that the film was rated R, for language, despairing that the movie might not be viewed by teenagers who would like and relate with the characters. Also, Lahti mentioned several times that she would have liked to have more time to shoot different perspectives in order to facilitate story arch.
Lahti will appear in the
USA Network drama series
Operating Instructions, directed by
Hitch director
Andy Tennant.
Lahti starred in the ADA role on
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Sonya Paxton, while the character
Alexandra Cabot (
Stephanie March) was on leave. She will be in the first four episodes
and returned for the show's ninth episode, where she clashed with Alex Cabot.
She returned to Broadway upon joining the cast of the
Tony Award-winning play
God of Carnage on November 17, 2009, replacing actress
Marcia Gay Harden.
Personal life
Lahti is married to
TV director Thomas Schlamme, a native of
Texas, since September 4, 1983. They have three children: Wilson and twins Joe Tabor and Emma Kate (born 1993). Over the past decade she has mainly acted in independent films or TV series, and she is active in political causes.
Since May 2005, Lahti has been a contributing blogger at
The Huffington Post.
Filmography
