page_title: Edie Falco
section_title: 1987–1999: Early career
hierarchical_section_title: Edie Falco / Career / 1987–1999: Early career
caption_attribution_description: Edie Falco by David Shankbone
context_page_description: Edith Falco is an American actress, best known for her roles as Diane Whittlesey in the HBO series Oz and Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos. For the latter, she received six Emmy nominations, winning three for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, as well as winning two Golden Globes and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.
  Falco portrayed Nurse Jackie Peyton on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie, earning a further six Emmy nominations and winning once for an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy. In 2016, she played Sylvia Wittel on the web series Horace and Pete. In 2017, she portrayed defense attorney Leslie Abramson in the first season of the true crime anthology series Law & Order True Crime, for which she garnered her 14th Emmy nomination, this time for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
  Falco's film work includes lead roles in Laws of Gravity, for which she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead and Judy Berlin, and supporting roles in films including Sunshine State, Freedomland, and The Comedian.
context_section_description: Early in her career, Falco made appearances on television shows like Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street. Tom Fontana, executive producer of Homicide, cast Falco as Eva Thormann, the wife of an injured police officer, after watching Falco's performance in Laws of Gravity, a 1992 film directed by Nick Gomez. Fontana said of her, "She's an actress who's unadorned by any embroidery. She does everything with such simplicity and honesty, it's breathtaking." A struggling actress at the time, Falco said her salary from these television episodes paid for one month's worth of rent.
  Her first big break in films was a small speaking role in the 1994 Woody Allen film Bullets over Broadway. Her friendship with former SUNY Purchase classmate Eric Mendelsohn, who was the assistant to Allen's costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, helped her to be cast in the role. Mendelsohn went on to direct Falco in his feature film Judy Berlin, for which he won Best Director honors at the Sundance Film Festival. Falco went on to star in Mendelsohn's next film 3 Backyards, for which he won Best Director a second time.
  During this time, Falco appeared in the films Trust, Cop Land, Private Parts (nonspeaking part), Random Hearts, On Broadway, she appeared in the Tony Award-winning Side Man and in the revivals of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune opposite Stanley Tucci, and 'night, Mother opposite Brenda Blethyn.
  In 1997, Falco started portraying prison officer Diane Whittlesey, in the HBO series Oz. Falco got the role after working with Fontana on Homicide.
caption: Falco in 2007
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