Cynthia Nixon

Cynthia Nixon has been performing on stage and screen since her teen years, but it was her role as Miranda Hobbes on TV's Sex and the City (1998-2004) that made her a star. Nixon has worked steadily since her feature film debut in the teen comedy Little Darlings (1980). She has had small roles in the films Amadeus (1984), The Manhattan Project (1986), Addams Family Values (1993, with Christina Ricci) and, more recently, Igby Goes Down (2002, with Claire Danes) and One Last Thing (2005). On television she was the teenage daughter in the political satire mini-series Tanner '88 (written by Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau). Nixon has also appeared on Broadway and was Tony-nominated for her performance in Indiscretions (1995). On Sex and the City (with co-star Sarah Jessica Parker), she played a work-oriented single mother with an on-again, off-again relationship with her child's father, a role that earned her an Emmy in 2004. She also appeared in the feature film reprise, Sex and the City, in 2008.

Extra credit: Tanner '88 had an unusual lifespan: The first season appeared in 1988, the second season in 2004. Nixon appeared in both seasons.