Kim Dickens

Personal life

Dickens was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the daughter of Pam (Clark) Howell and Justin Dickens, a country-western singer. She graduated from that city's Lee High School and attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in communication. Dickens soon moved to New York City, where she worked as a waitress, to continue her studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In the late 1990s she moved to Los Angeles.

1990s

Dickens made her stage debut in a student production of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, at Vanderbilt University. In 1995, she made her professional screen debut in the Alan Taylor's comedy film Palookaville, playing Vincent Gallo's character's girlfriend. She spent the following year playing supporting roles in the made-for-television films Voice from the Grave and Two Mothers for Zachary. In 1997, Dickens returned to film, playing female leading role opposite Vincent Gallo again in neo-noir thriller Truth or Consequences, N.M. directed by Kiefer Sutherland. Film received negative reviews from critics. In 1998, she appeared in Great Expectations, a film adaptation of the Charles Dickens's novel, and had the female leading roles in Zero Effect with Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller, and Ryan O'Neal, and Mercury Rising with Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin. In 1999, she starred alongside Antonio Banderas in the comedy film The White River Kid.

2000s

In 2000, Dickens had co-starring roles in films Committed opposite Heather Graham, Hollow Man with Elisabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon, and The Gift starring Cate Blanchett. The following year, she played the lead in the independent film, Things Behind the Sun. Dickens received critical acclaim for her performance, and Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead nomination. Later that year, she was regular cast member in the short-lived CBS police drama series, Big Apple. In 2003, she co-starred opposite Felicity Huffman and Eric Stoltz in the Showtime miniseries Out of Order.

In 2000s, Dickens mostly worked on television, playing Joanie Stubbs, the madam, in the HBO western Deadwood from 2004 to 2006. She was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2007 for this role. She was regular cast member in the unaired HBO comedy series, 12 Miles of Bad Road starring Lily Tomlin and Mary Kay Place. She had the recurring roles on Lost and Friday Night Lights. In film, Dickens co-starred in House of Sand and Fog (2003) with Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley, Thank You for Smoking (2005), Wild Tigers I Have Known (2006), Red (2008) and The Blind Side (2009).

2010s

From 2010 to 2013, Dickens was a regular on the HBO ensemble drama series, Treme, as Janette Desautel. From 2013 to 2014, she had the recurring role as Colette Jane in the FX crime drama, Sons of Anarchy. In 2015, she had a recurring role in the Netflix political drama House of Cards. In film, she co-starred in Footloose (2011) and At Any Price (2012). In 2014, she had a major supporting role as Detective Rhonda Boney in the critically acclaimed psychological thriller film Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, and in 2016, co-starred as the lead character's mother in Tim Burton's film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

In 2015, Dickens began playing Madison Clark in The Walking Dead companion series, Fear the Walking Dead. The series premiered on AMC on August 23, 2015.