Rachel Griffiths is the Australian-born actress best known to American television audiences for her role as Brenda Chenowith on HBO's Six Feet Under. Griffiths' first acting break came when she costarred with fellow Aussie actress Toni Colette in Muriel's Wedding (1994), for which she won the Best Supporting Actress award from the Australian Film Institute.
Griffiths then appeared in a number of Hollywood and independent films, including Cosi (Barry Otto, Toni Colette), Jude (Christopher Eccleston, Kate Winslet) and My Best Friend's Wedding (Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney). In 1998, she was Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the codependent sister of a troubled, world-famous; concert cellist, in Hilary and Jackie (Emily Watson). This past summer, she starred opposite fellow Aussie actor Guy Pearce in the crime thriller, The Hard Word.
Griffiths has garnered kudos as a director for her films Tulip (at the Aspen Shortfest), and Roundabout, which won Best Short Fiction Film from the Australian Film Institute. Griffiths work on Six Feet Under has earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award (for Outstanding Drama Series Ensemble), a Golden (3lobe (Best Performance by an Actress in a Series) and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.
