Golden Globes 2023: Julia Garner, a superstar in the making

Julia Garner won best supporting actress in a musical, comedy or drama award at the 2023 Golden Globes on Tuesday, for her role in 'Ozark'. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

The first time we meet Ozark’s Ruth Langmore, she is working housekeeping at the motel where the Byrde’s are staying. Later in the episode, when our lead character Marty Byrde meets the Langmore clan, it’s the smarter-than-she-looks Ruth who almost changes the trajectory of that scene, and Marty realises that this diminutive 19-year-old girl is the Langmore he needs to watch out for. And audiences around the world were introduced to Julia Garner as the foul-mouthed, no-nonsense, ruthless (sorry!) Ruth Langmore.

Garner received critical and fan acclaim for her performance and was easily the best part of the show, which was basically a poor imitation of Breaking Bad. As much as fans wanted to follow the Byrde family, they were just waiting for Ruth to turn up and start some s***.

The 28-year-old had previously won three Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series over the course of the show, which ended last year after a five-year run. Earlier this week, Garner’s fiery street-smart criminal beat out a princess (Elizabeth Debicki in The Crown), a comic (Hannah Einbinder in Hacks), an elementary school principal and teacher (Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph in Abbott Elementary) to win a Golden Globe.

Garner’s obvious talent notwithstanding, she was no doubt helped by the expanded field of nominees. For the first time since its inception, the Globes split the existing Best Supporting Actress — Series, Miniseries or Television Film into two categories — Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series: Comedy/Musical or Drama, and Best Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film, allowing for 10 nominees instead of the previous five. The split also allowed the inimitably kooky Jennifer Coolidge to win her first Globe for The White Lotus in the anthology category.

At 5ft, 4 inches, Garner seems delicate, but her portrayal of Ruth was so transformational that you could believe hardened criminals twice her size cowering before her. Apart from the twangy Midwest accent and the constant flow of profanities, the role also involved a fair amount of physical prowess. Garner was as convincing with a shotgun as she was reducing grown men to tears with a perfectly timed sarcastic one-liners.

Garner is part of a new crop of young actors who are imbuing their roles with electrifying performances beyond what’s on the page. While she may not yet have had the high-profile roles of Zendaya, Florence Pugh, or even Anya Taylor-Joy, she is one big role away from superstardom, along with fellow under-30 actors like Kaitlyn Dever, Sydney Sweeney and Thomasin McKenzie, among others. These young women are challenging the traditional path to superstardom, taking up unconventional roles and bucking the expectations that audiences and the industry have from them.

Julia began her career as a teenager, after taking acting classes to overcome her shyness. She was immediately noticed by acclaimed directors like Sean Durkin and David Chase who gave her small but significant roles in Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) and Not Fade Away (2012). She continued starring in bit parts for the next few years until she bagged a recurring role on the third season of FX’s The Americans, a spy drama set in the '80s at the height of the Cold War. Her performance as Kimberly "Kimmy" Breland and her interplay with show lead Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings was so brilliant that her role, which was meant to be written out at the end of that season, was expanded and she stayed on the show until its sixth and final season.

Garner also portrayed the titular role in the indie drama The Assistant (2019), which examined the #MeToo movement from the perspective of a production assistant in a film production company, for which she received rave reviews. She followed that up with a high-wattage performance in Shonda Rhimes’ Inventing Anna, where she played Russian-born German fraudster Anna Delvey which got her Best Actress nominations at both the Emmys and the Golden Globes.

In 2022, it was announced that Garner would play Madonna in a biopic tentatively titled "Little Sparrow", with the singer co-writing and set to direct. Garner competed in an intense months-long audition process which involved dancing, singing, and acting sessions with Madonna herself. The potentially star-making role was hotly contested by every young actress in Hollywood, including Florence Pugh, Sydney Sweeney, and Alexa Demie, among others. The project is still in pre-production and is unlikely to be completed before 2024, but when it does come out it will cement Julia Garner as an A-list actor with awards consideration, which she undoubtedly deserves.