Cynthia Nixon is best known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998–2004), the film Sex and the City (2008), and its sequel Sex and the City 2 (2010). She has won two Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award.

Nixon began her acting career in 1979 in the after school special The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid, before making her Broadway debut in the 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. Other Broadway credits include The Real Thing (1983), Hurlyburly (1983), Indiscretions (1995), The Women (2001) and Wit (2012).

Nixon received three Emmy Award nominations for her six seasons on Sex and the City, winning in 2004.

She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 2006 original production of Rabbit Hole, a second Emmy in 2008 for her guest role in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2009, for An Inconvenient Truth.

During her career, Nixon has appeared in films include Amadeus (1984), The Manhattan Project (1986), The Pelican Brief (1993), Baby's Day Out (1994), Little Manhattan (2005), Rampart (2011), 5 Flights Up (2014), and Stockholm, Pennsylvania (2015).

Nixon also starred in HBO Films Warm Springs (2005) as Eleanor Roosevelt, for which she received Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie nomination, and played Michele Davis in Too Big to Fail (2011). Nixon plays Emily Dickinson in the upcoming biographical film A Quiet Passion.