Michelle Williams

Primarily known for her work in small independent films with dark or tragic themes, she is the recipient of various awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards and three British Academy Awards. Michelle, a daughter of politician and trader Larry R. Williams, began her career with television guest appearances and made her film debut in the family film Lassie in 1994

Steven Spielberg recently cast Williams to play his mother, or the role closely modeled on his mother, in his new film, “The Fabelmans,” out next month. A concert pianist, a restaurateur, a pet monkey adopter, his mother, Leah Adler, was a charismatic partner in play for her son, someone who nurtured him creatively and loved him fiercely. Seeing his own childhood brought to life in such vivid detail sometimes left him flooded with emotion. In one of those moments, Spielberg says, he found solace in the woman who remained enough in character, even off camera, to comfort him in just the way he needed to be comforted. “Michelle knew how to hug me,” he says, “the way my mom used to.”

She committed, for example, to working with the director Kelly Reichardt, who had directed her in “Wendy and Lucy,” in “Meek’s Cutoff” (2010), an indie film about pioneers trying to survive crossing the Oregon desert in 1845.

In June 2018, Williams told Vanity Fair that, after many years of looking for the radical acceptance she’d felt from Ledger, she was “finally loved by someone who makes me feel free.” She was about to marry the songwriter and singer Phil Elverum, and she was sharing the news of her happiness, she told the reporter, in the hope that she might help other women who were like her, in the club of single mothers, to keep the faith.