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Joan Cusack
Joan Cusack
	Cusack in 2009
Born	Joan Mary Cusack; October 11, 1962 (age 62); New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Wisconsin–Madison
Occupations	Actress; comedian;
Years active	1979–present
Spouse	Richard Burke (m. 1996)
Children	2
Parent	Dick Cusack (father)
Relatives	Ann Cusack (sister); John Cusack (brother);
Awards	Full list

Joan Mary Cusack (/ˈkjuːsæk/; born October 11, 1962)^[1]^[2] is an American actress and comedian. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in the comedy-drama Working Girl (1988) and the romantic comedy In & Out (1997). Her other starring roles include those in Toys (1992), Addams Family Values (1993), Nine Months (1995), Cradle Will Rock (1999), Where the Heart Is (2000), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) and Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008). She has also provided the voice of Jessie in the Toy Story franchise (1999–present), for which she won an Annie Award, and Abby Mallard in Chicken Little (2005).

Cusack was a cast member on the comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1986. She starred on the Showtime hit drama/comedy series Shameless (2011–2021) as Sheila Jackson, a role for which she received five consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning for the first time in 2015. She is the sister of actress Ann Cusack and actor John Cusack.

Early life

Cusack was born on October 11, 1962, in New York City and was raised in Evanston, Illinois.^[3] Her mother, Ann Paula "Nancy" Cusack (née Carolan; 1929–2022),^[4] was a former mathematics teacher and political activist.^[5]^[6]^[7] Her father, Dick Cusack (1925–2003), was an actor and filmmaker, and two of her four siblings, Ann and John, are actors. Her family is of Irish Catholic descent.^[8] Cusack is an alumna of the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1984).^[9]

Career

Cusack has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Working Girl (1988) and In & Out (1997).^{[citation needed]} She has appeared with her brother John in 10 movies: Class (1983), Sixteen Candles (1984), Grandview, U.S.A. (1984), Broadcast News (1987), Say Anything... (1989), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Cradle Will Rock (1999), High Fidelity (2000), Martian Child (2007), and War, Inc. (2008).

In the film Addams Family Values (1993), she played psychotic serial killer Debbie Jellinsky, who marries and kills rich men. She also starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom What About Joan? in 2001 and the hit film Arlington Road (1999). For many years, Cusack was also the commercial spokeswoman for U.S. Cellular. One of Cusack's most well-known roles was the principal of Horace Green Elementary School, Rosalie 'Roz' Mullins, in School of Rock (2003). She also voiced Jessie in the Pixar hits Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Toy Story 4 (2019), and played Dr. Burton, the therapist of Charlie (Logan Lerman), in the teen film The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). She also played Erin's mom in the final episode of NBC's The Office.

Cusack was a cast member on the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1986. Her recurring characters on SNL included Salena, a socially inept girl who tries to ask out her boyfriend, Biff (played by Jon Lovitz), who is also socially inept. In addition, she did celebrity impersonations of Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda, and Queen Elizabeth II.

She has been nominated four times for the American Comedy Award in the category of Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture and has won three times, for Runaway Bride (1999), In & Out (1997), and Working Girl (1988). She has also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for In & Out.^{[citation needed]}

Cusack narrates the public-TV animated series Peep and the Big Wide World. In September 2010, Cusack guest-starred on NBC's Law & Order: SVU.^[10]

She also appeared as Justice Strauss in Netflix's adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, which premiered in 2017.^[11]

Cusack also appeared as the Tin Foil Lady in the Netflix movie Let It Snow, which was released in November 2019.

Shameless

In 2010, Cusack joined the Showtime drama/comedy Shameless as Sheila Jackson, the mother of Karen Jackson (Laura Slade Wiggins). The first season premiered on January 9, 2011, and had its first finale March 27, 2011. Cusack replaced actress Allison Janney, who portrayed the role in the first edit of the pilot episode. Janney took the role with the understanding the character would be less prominent on the show, but when producers decided to increase the character's screen presence, she was forced to pull out of the part to honor her series commitment on the ABC comedy Mr. Sunshine. Cusack has received critical acclaim for her performance, receiving Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series nominations in 2011, 2012, and 2013, as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2014 and 2015, winning in the later year.

Personal life

Cusack married attorney Richard Burke, President and CEO of Envoy Global, Inc. in 1996.^[12]^[13] They have two sons: Dylan John and Miles.^[14] She discovered she was pregnant with her first child on her first day of shooting the movie Mr. Wrong (1996). Cusack owns a home in Three Oaks Township, Michigan, and lives in Chicago, Illinois.

In 2003, both Joan and her brother John signed the "Not in My Name" resolution (along with people such as Noam Chomsky and Susan Sarandon) opposing the invasion of Iraq.^{[citation needed]}

Since 2011, Cusack has owned Judy Maxwell Home, a gift shop in Old Town, Chicago.^[15] The shop is named for Barbra Streisand's character in What's Up Doc?, Cusack's favorite movie.^[16]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1980	Cutting Loose
1980	My Bodyguard	Shelley
1983	Class	Julia
1984	Sixteen Candles	Geek Girl #1
1984	Grandview, U.S.A.	Mary Maine
1987	The Allnighter	Gina
1987	Broadcast News	Blair Litton
1988	Stars and Bars	Irene Stein
	Married to the Mob	Rose
	Working Girl	Cyn
1989	Say Anything...	Constance Dobler	Uncredited
1990	Men Don't Leave	Jody
1990	My Blue Heaven	Hannah Stubs
1991	The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez	Cathy	Also writer
1992	Hero	Evelyn Laplante
1992	Toys	Alsatia Zevo
1993	Addams Family Values	Debbie Jellinsky
1994	Corrina, Corrina	Jonesy
1995	Nine Months	Gail Dwyer
1995	Two Much	Gloria
1996	Mr. Wrong	Inga Gunther
1997	Grosse Pointe Blank	Marcella Mayes
	A Smile Like Yours	Nancy Tellen
	In & Out	Emily Montgomery
1999	Arlington Road	Cheryl Lang
	Cradle Will Rock	Hazel Huffman
	Runaway Bride	Peggy Flemming
	Toy Story 2	Jessie (voice)
2000	High Fidelity	Liz
2000	Where the Heart Is	Ruth Meyers
2002	It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie	Rachel Bitterman
2003	School of Rock	Rosalie Mullins
2003	Looney Tunes: Back in Action	Mother
2004	Raising Helen	Jenny Portman
2004	The Last Shot	Fanny Nash
2005	Ice Princess	Joan Carlyle
2005	Chicken Little	Abby Mallard (voice)
2006	Friends with Money	Franny
2007	Martian Child	Liz Gordon
2008	War, Inc.	Marsha Dillon
2008	Kit Kittredge: An American Girl	Miss Lucinda Bond
2009	Confessions of a Shopaholic	Jane Bloomwood
	My Sister's Keeper	Judge De Salvo
	Acceptance	Nina Rockefeller
2010	Toy Story 3	Jessie (voice)
2011	Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil	Verushka (voice)
	Mars Needs Moms	Milo's Mom (voice)	Also motion-capture
	Hawaiian Vacation	Jessie (voice)	Short film
	Small Fry	Jessie (voice)	Short film
	Arthur Christmas	Mission Control Elf (voice)
2012	Partysaurus Rex	Jessie (voice)	Short film
2012	The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Dr. Burton
2014	Welcome to Me	Dawn Hurley
2015	The End of the Tour	Patty Gunderson
2015	Freaks of Nature	Peg Parker
2016	Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping	Tilly Friel
2017	Snatched	Barb
2017	Unicorn Store	Gladys
2018	Instant Family	Mrs. Howard
2019	Toy Story 4	Jessie (voice)
	Let It Snow	Tin Foil Woman
	Klaus	Mrs. Tammy Krum (voice)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985–1986	Saturday Night Live	Various Characters	17 episodes
2000	Sesame Street	Herself	1 episode
2000	72nd Academy Awards	Jessie (voice)	Television special
2001–2002	What About Joan?	Joan Gallagher	Lead role
2004–2011	Peep and the Big Wide World	Narrator (voice)	Main role
2010	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Pamela Burton	Episode: "Locum"
2011–2015	Shameless	Sheila Jackson	Recurring role (seasons 1–5)
2011	Phineas and Ferb	Glenda Wilkins (voice)	Episode: "Last Train to Bustville"
2013	The Office	Erin's Biological Mother	Episode: "Finale"
2013	Toy Story of Terror!	Jessie (voice)	Television special
2014	Toy Story That Time Forgot	Jessie (voice)	Television special
2016–2019	The Stinky & Dirty Show	Red (voice)	8 episodes
2017, 2019	A Series of Unfortunate Events	Justice Strauss	4 episodes
2017	The Christmas Train	Agnes	Television film
2020	Homecoming	Francine Bunda	3 episodes

Video games

Year	Title	Voice role	Notes
1999	Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue	Jessie
2005	Chicken Little	Abby Mallard	Archive recordings
2006	Chicken Little: Ace in Action	Abby Mallard
2010	Toy Story 3: The Video Game	Jessie
2011	Kinect: Disneyland Adventures
2012	Kinect Rush: A Disney–Pixar Adventure
2016	Disney Magic Kingdoms		Initial release; voice lines were later removed in an update
2023	Disney Speedstorm