The New York Times: Frances McDormand’s Difficult Women. “The actor has built a career, and a passionate fan base, playing supporting roles; now, at 60, she has become an unconventional star.” By Jordan Kisner.

“Frances McDormand, or Fran, as she is called in regular life, cuts a handsome figure on the street. She is 60 and sexy in the manner of women who have achieved total self-possession. She eschews makeup unless she is working, doesn’t dye her hair and despises the nips, tucks and lifts that have become routine for women of her profession. Her clothes are well made — she loves clothes — but utilitarian and comfortable. On this day she was wearing loose-legged cropped pants, black-and-peach sneakers, a navy sweater and a thin headband shoved in and out of uncombed hair as the mood struck.

She doesn’t do press junkets, and for most of the 20 years since she won a Best Actress Academy Award for playing Marge Gunderson, the tremendously pregnant, improbably cheerful police detective in “Fargo,“ she has refused interviews. Her publicist explained to me that his job is to politely tell people to go away.”