Amanda Plummer gives awkward, vulnerable people a distinct voice and a physical unease that cannot be tidied away. We value her most when a film gives those people time to be more than its resident eccentric.
Fi1m perspective
In The Fisher King (1991), Amanda Plummer's Lydia is awkward in a way that belongs to her, not to a screenwriter's idea of a charming misfit. Her discomfort matters to the romance, and Terry Gilliam gives her time to make it felt. We were moved by Lydia because Plummer never seemed to be asking us to find her adorable. Gilliam's film has its share of sentiment, but she helps keep the romance from becoming too easy.
Her film work began with Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), playing Cattle Annie opposite Burt Lancaster, before supporting roles followed through the 1980s. Wider notice came with The Fisher King and Pulp Fiction (1994), but that did not lead to a career built around conventional leading parts. She continued in character roles across film and television. Her quavering voice and physical awkwardness make her easy to recognise, even when the part is small.
In Pulp Fiction, her Honey Bunny appears alongside Tim Roth in the opening diner scene. Quentin Tarantino's crime film has plenty of sharp talk and conspicuous personalities, and Plummer's intensity is well suited to that company. This is a useful introduction to her work, but a narrow one if it is the only performance that comes to mind. Lydia, the shy accountant in Gilliam's film, gives a better sense of how much her acting can do when the character is allowed some ordinary vulnerability.
The risk is that filmmakers ask her to supply the strangeness and leave the character at that. She has often been cast as eccentric or unhinged women, and an actor can only do so much with a part written chiefly to seem odd. Later work includes Wiress in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), with supporting roles remaining central to her screen career. Start with The Fisher King, and give its wandering plot some patience; Plummer is one of the reasons the detours are worth taking.
Biography
Amanda Plummer is an American actress. Born on 23 March 1957 in New York City, she is the daughter of actors Tammy Grimes and Christopher Plummer. She attended Middlebury College and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.
Plummer began her career on stage. She made her Broadway debut as Josephine in the 1981 revival of A Taste of Honey, earning a Tony Award nomination. In 1982 she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Sister Agnes in Agnes of God.
She is known for her film roles including Lydia in The Fisher King (1991) and Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994). Other credits include Wiress in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) and Captain Vadic in Star Trek: Picard (2020).
