Jeannie Berlin makes supporting characters feel entitled to their own scene, even when the film has other plans. We value her emotional directness, though a glance can only do so much when the script gives her little else.
Fi1m perspective
In Margaret (2011), Jeannie Berlin's Emily does not wait for Lisa Cohen to finish being upset before having feelings of her own. Berlin gives those feelings enough force to interrupt our attention to the central character. That matters in a film which keeps asking who is entitled to speak for somebody else's suffering. We rate her because she makes us take a supporting character seriously even when doing so complicates our sympathy for the lead.
The early breakthrough was The Heartbreak Kid (1972), with Elaine May directing her as Lila Kolodny. The part gave her scope to play vulnerability and romantic delusion without smoothing away the awkwardness. A lead followed in Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975), then a long absence from major screen work before Margaret brought her back to prominence.
Kenneth Lonergan's writing in Margaret is particularly well suited to that emotional directness. Emily's feelings cannot simply be borrowed to explain Lisa, and Berlin makes us consider them separately. We were unsettled by Emily, because Berlin made our concentration on Lisa feel like a way of overlooking somebody else's pain. The crowded story and uneven editing can make the film hard work, but her performance helps justify the effort. Lonergan lets disagreements persist rather than settling them by telling us whom to like.
Later ensemble parts include Aunt Reet in Inherent Vice (2014) and Hadassah Fabelman in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022). The difficulty with this sort of career is that a film can hire the actor and then neglect the character. Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride (2026) leaves Berlin's Greta with a promising look and too little development. Berlin can suggest more with a glance than the dialogue supplies in a speech, but that is a criticism of the writing as much as praise for her. For Berlin with enough to do, start with Margaret.
Biography
Jeannie Berlin is an American actress. Born Jeannie Brette May on 1 November 1949 in Los Angeles, she is the daughter of director and performer Elaine May.
She is best known for her performance as Lila Kolodny in her mother's 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid, for which she received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Berlin has appeared in films including Margaret (2011), Inherent Vice (2014), Café Society (2016), The Fabelmans (2022) and You Hurt My Feelings (2023).
Her television credits include roles in The Night Of (2016), Hunters (2020) and Succession (2019–2023). She is set to appear as Greta in the 2026 film The Bride!.
