Call of Duty 2

Call of Duty 2 is a 2005 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision in most regions of the world. It is the second installment of the Call of Duty series. Announced by Activision on April 7, 2005, the game was released for Microsoft Windows on October 25, 2005, and as a launch title for the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005. Other versions were eventually released for OS X, mobile phones, and Pocket PCs.

The game is set during World War II and the campaign mode is experienced through the perspectives of four soldiers: one in the Red Army, one in the United States Army, and two in the British Army. It contains four individual campaigns, split into three stories, with a total of 27 missions. Many features were added and changed from the original Call of Duty, notably regenerating health and an icon that indicates a nearby grenade about to explode.

The game drew critical praise, particularly for the graphics, sound, and the regenerating health system. The Xbox 360 version sold more than 250,000 copies in its first week, more than 2 million copies by January 2008, and nearly 6 million copies by November 2013. It is considered to be one of the best video games of all time.

## Gameplay

Call of Duty 2 is a first-person shooter that has a single-player story mode and a multiplayer mode. The player takes on the roles of several Allied protagonists in specific missions during World War II. The player can crouch and lie prone, and is able to scale low walls and other obstacles.

The player can carry two firearms, and may swap them for others found on the battlefield. A gun's iron sights can be used to aim more accurately. Fragmentation and smoke grenades can be carried. Emplaced weapons such as machine guns and flak cannons are available in some locations. Some missions place the player in control of a tank.

A compass on the heads-up display (HUD) shows allies, enemies, and markers that indicate locations the player must reach, areas to defend, or enemy artillery pieces or tanks that the player must plant explosives on to disable.

The player has binoculars. Generally ignored during infantry-centric missions, they are useful for scouting and vital to the long-range use of the Crusader tanks and a mission in which the player must direct artillery fire to defend a town.

Should the player take severe damage, the screen will turn red and the sound of the character's heartbeat will increase in volume; these indicate that the player's health is low. Health is only restored through automatic recharging when the player is not taking fire. Some attacks will kill the player instantly, such as nearby explosions by grenades or shells. A player who dies restarts from the last checkpoint.

In April 2006, Infinity Ward released Call of Duty 2 Radiant, which allows a player to create their own multiplayer or single-player maps. The mapmaker includes Maya plug-in support, an effects editor, and an asset manager that allows custom models to be made and imported into the game, as well as custom effects.

### Campaign

Call of Duty 2 contains three individual campaigns, fought in the roles of four World War II soldiers, for a total of 27 missions. The game has four difficulty levels: Easy, Regular, Hardened, and Veteran.

### Multiplayer

Call of Duty 2 features several game types: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, Capture the Flag and Headquarters. The maps include Normandy, Africa, and Russia. Each team can choose a variety of weapons, depending on the map. Players can choose between American soldiers, Soviet soldiers, and British soldiers for the Allied forces, while the Axis forces must play as German soldiers.

Each PC multiplayer server can hold a maximum of 64 players, while the limit is eight players on Xbox. In the Xbox 360 version, players can play on Xbox Live and get new map packs. There are 13 official maps, including three remakes from the original Call of Duty. There are three extra map packs (Bonus Pack, Skirmish Pack, and Invasion Pack) that add a total of eight maps.

## Plot

### Soviet campaign

The player controls Private Vasili Koslov of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, initially involved in the defense of Moscow from the advancing German Wehrmacht and Spanish Blue Division troops. The next level involves the destruction of a German stronghold in Stalingrad during September 1942. The next objective involves battling for strongholds throughout Stalingrad throughout December 1942, including re-connecting cut telephone wires and re-capturing the rail-yard and train-station. The final mission takes place during the final Soviet offensive in Stalingrad in January 1943, which involves the re-capture and defense of city blocks and Stalingrad city hall.

### British campaign

The player controls a British soldier, Sergeant John Davis of the 7th Armoured Division in North Africa, led by Captain Price. The first level has the player taking part in a sneak attack on German Afrika Korps troops, ending with the destruction of a German supply station. The next level has the player defending a town from overwhelming numbers of Germans sending counter attacks from North, West, South and East; finally achieving victory by destroying much of the German tank force using artillery. This is followed by the Second Battle of El Alamein, during which the player has to fight through several trenches, machine gun nests, 88mm Flak 36 guns and finally taking the German field headquarters. The assault on El Dabaa to intercept the remaining Germans in Egypt and destroy several 88mm guns soon follows, ending the first British campaign. An addendum to the second set of missions has the player taking on the role of a British tank commander, David Welsh, while engaging German forces in Libya. The first mission of the third campaign in Toujane, Tunisia, has the player immediately under fire, holding a house until they break out and rendezvous with the second squad. They then retake Toujane with reinforcements the next day all before assaulting Matmata. The final British campaign takes place during the Battle for Caen as part of Operation Overlord.

### American campaign

As Corporal Bill Taylor of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, the player starts off by playing a part in D-Day, at the assault of Pointe du Hoc, to destroy a German artillery battery, and hold it against a massive German counter-offensive in the following mission. Soon after, the player captures a nearby town and serves as a sniper against mortar crews until reinforcements arrive. The second objective is focused on Hill 400, involving the capture of Bergstein, a disastrous charge at Hill 400's bunkers and the defense against the German counterattack, with the player again performing sniper work against German mortar teams, destroying enemy armor, and generally holding the hill against a massive counter-attack, all the while burdened by artillery and overwhelming numbers of German Wehrmacht soldiers. The final mission is set amongst the Americans in the Rhine River crossing into Germany. It begins as one of the few missions with the player immediately under fire, providing cover fire against the Germans until reaching the river banks and then fighting through most of the town. The final fight has the player defeat two German Tiger Is.

### Ending

The end credits depict the dramatic rescue of Captain Price from the Germans by a group of American soldiers. After the credits end, the words "No cows were harmed in the making of this game" appear, as in the original Call of Duty. This is a reference to the dead cattle visible in the Normandy missions.

## Development

On April 7, 2005, Activision announced that Infinity Ward was developing Call of Duty 2, set for release in fall 2005 for PC. It had been speculated that Infinity Ward was developing the sequel at the same time as Gray Matter Studios developed Call of Duty: United Offensive. Infinity Ward president Grant Collier said:

> "Our team at Infinity Ward is committed to thrusting gamers into the heat of battle like no other, taking players on a thrill-ride of adrenaline that leaves everyone gasping for air. In Call of Duty 2, we are creating the most intense and realistic action game imaginable with a stunning visual atmosphere and an advanced technology that delivers an unprecedented level of authenticity".

The press release said players would engage enemies in a less linear battlefield, tackle the major battles chronologically, and use squad tactics not available in previous Call of Duty games. Infinity Ward also confirmed making a "Battle Chatter System", similar to Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, where squad members converse to create situational awareness.

The game engine—proprietary IW engine 2.0—is a modified version of id Tech 3, which was used in the first Call of Duty game. With the new game engine, Infinity Ward expanded the scope of combat to deliver a realistic battlefield experience and improved the visuals. The developers were able to cloud visibility with smoke from smoke grenades and create weather effects like dusty sandstorms and whiteout blizzard.

The game was known to "let players experience four individual soldier stories as they overcome insurmountable odds in multiple campaigns. Players have the freedom to follow each of the four storylines through for the ultimate character-driven experience, or they can engage in the historic battles chronologically for quick hitting action. Squads now have the freedom to take on a variety of mission objectives, on expansive battlefields that allow for multiple paths and the ability to utilize actual combat tactics like outflanking and fire and maneuver capabilities".

Call of Duty 2 was going to be more immersive than the original Call of Duty. Vince Zampella, creative director of Infinity Ward, said, "We didn't want to take any of the parts out that made Call of Duty so good. But there were a couple of things that we admit could have been done better". A demo of the game showed a more open gameplay style and a better AI for the enemies, who would actively go after the player. There are a set number of enemies set on the map that will begin reacting to the player's presence once the first shot has been fired. Groups of enemies farther away send units up to see what is happening and add to the combat while enemies directly in front of the player will join in and take cover quickly.

Infinity Ward spent a lot of time on WWII battlefields, which led them to scrap whole levels for parts of the game that took place in France, since they found the location very different from what they imagined.

One of the details the team added are post-war effects that continue on the battlefield throughout the game, where dust and smoke continue to roll through the streets, clouding up vision, and junk and debris scattered everywhere. The game has sound attenuation, with a 5.1 surround sound system, and context sensitive dialog, with a total of twenty-thousand lines of dialog. Each of the soldiers fighting alongside the player will call out the position of enemy soldiers, warn of flank attacks, and help out in ways that were not possible in the first game of the series. Zampella said, "We really wanted realistic battle chatter going that's not only entertaining, but actually adds to the gaming experience. So now you'll hear your guys telling you that there's [sic] two guys hiding behind that rusty car in the street or that there are people on the second floor of a building".

A small grayed-out grenade icon appears in the center of the screen when the player is near a grenade, with an arrow pointing in the direction of the grenade. Enemies can sometimes seem to be dead when they are not, where the enemy can still wield his side arm and fire at the player, known as Last Stand, which would later become a perk available to players in the multiplayer of subsequent games.

The game was showcased in E3 in 2005 and was announced as a launch title for the upcoming Xbox 360.

The game's budget was \$14.5 million. Development time was 2 years with 75 people. Despite being first on the new Xbox 360 platform, the game was developed with no mandatory overtime or weekend work.

## Reception

Call of Duty 2 received "generally positive" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. The graphics and sound were widely praised and the reactions to the regenerating health system were mostly positive, with reviewers from GameSpot and GamePro calling it an improvement over the previous health bar system.

For the Xbox 360 version, IGN's Douglass C. Perry described the presentation as "classy and well-produced", and said the graphics were some of the best on the Xbox 360 at its launch. He called the sound effects "unbelievable", whilst the gameplay was described as containing an "enormous amount of action". GameSpot reviewer Bob Colayco summarized his review by stating that Call of Duty 2 has "smooth, detailed graphics and great sound", as well as praising the artificial intelligence, realism, and variety in the campaign. GamePro called the game "breathtaking", and commended the game for its "strikingly realistic detail on weapons and walls, emphasized by normal mapping, exceptional shading and lighting, specular highlights, and some absolutely phenomenal particle effects". GameSpy editor Will Tuttle called it "One of the finest FPSs ever created. Thanks to a combination of sharp visuals, teeth-rattling sound effects, and tricky enemy AI, you'll be on the edge of your seat from the moment you're dropped into combat until your dying breath".

For the PC version, IGN editor Tom McNamara was impressed with the presentation and graphics, describing them as "Excellent" and "smooth" respectively. He also said the graphics did not suffer "from also being developed for the 360". McNamara also praised the sound, describing it as "sad music, encompassing battle noise, and excellent voice work". Bob Colayco of GameSpot also reviewed the PC version of the game, as he did its Xbox 360 counterpart. Colayco again commended the sound, calling the presentation of the game "excellent", as well as praising the aggression of the artificial intelligence. Unlike in his review of the Xbox 360 version, Colayco felt the multiplayer aspect was "fun". His main critique was for performance, stating "performance can chug at times". GameSpy's Sal Accardo noted "Instead of feeling like a stale retread [of the original Call of Duty] or losing steam halfway through, it manages to be a blast from start to finish". GamesRadar Joshua Latendresse called the single-player campaign "stunning" and cited that the multiplayer was even better.

Despite this praise, McNamara of IGN commented that he finds implementing regenerating health to be "a little troublesome", and that it allows players to "experience a kind of combat only a mythical super-soldier could withstand" which, therefore, "propels the game from gritty authenticity to John Woo fantasy". GameSpot's Colayco was critical of the game's pricing, stating it had a "higher pricepoint than its PC counterpart". He also complained that the multiplayer aspect could only support eight players. The PC version multiplayer was criticized as being a step back from that of Call of Duty: United Offensive.

Call of Duty 2 was the most popular launch title on the Xbox 360, with 200,000 units sold in its first week of availability. 77% of people who purchased an Xbox 360 also purchased the game, which contributed to its high sales. As of July 2006, 1.4 million copies of the game had been sold on the Xbox 360. By January 2008, the game had sold 2 million copies. By November 2013, the game had sold 5.9 million copies.

The editors of Computer Games Magazine named Call of Duty 2 the seventh-best computer game of 2005. They called it "the ultimate WWII shooter".

## Advertisement controversy

A television advertisement for Call of Duty 2 was the subject of some controversy in 2006. The commercial, created by a Los Angeles animation studio Rhythm and Hues Studios, depicted a first-person view of events that were supposed to transpire during the game, rather than scenes from the game itself. Some consumers felt that the advertisements were misleading, and in February 2006 the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) demanded that networks remove the advertisements after three consumers filed complaints of false advertising. According to ASA spokesperson Donna Mitchell, "Viewers felt that the ad was misleading because the quality of graphics was superior to that of the game's". Activision denies that the scenes were meant to give an impression of gameplay, stating in a press release shortly after the ASA banning that "The footage was intended purely to communicate the subject matter of the game rather than to represent actual gameplay".

## Other versions

A collector's edition of the game was released for Windows on October 25, 2005 and for the Xbox 360 labeled as the "Special Edition". It features the game and a bonus disc, which includes interviews, a making of the movie and two mission walkthroughs. On May 17, 2006, Activision announced a Game of the Year Edition for the Xbox 360, which includes material from the Special Edition, plus a token to download the Skirmish Map Pack. In January 2006, MFORMA (now Hands-On Mobile) released Call of Duty 2 for mobile phones. The mobile version is a 2D top-down shooter. It received a favorable review from IGN, praising its length and storytelling.

2005 video game

Multiplayer and single-player video games

Video games developed in the United States

War video games set in the British Empire


Serdar Tasci

Serdar Tasci (Turkish: Serdar Taşçı; born 24 April 1987) is a German former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.

Tasci started his career with VfB Stuttgart in 2006, playing with the club until 2013; captaining the side from 2011; making 181 senior appearances; and helping VfB win the 2006–07 Bundesliga. An injury in his first season at new club, Spartak Moscow, kept him out of action for a large part of the 2013–14 season. He was capped 14 times for Germany from 2008 to 2010, including the 2010 FIFA World Cup, at which Germany came third.

## Club career

### VfB Stuttgart

Tasci was born in Esslingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, to Turkish parents from Artvin. He started playing football when he was six; he then played for the youth teams of SC Altbach, Stuttgarter Kickers and VfB Stuttgart. Before the 2005–06 season, he joined Stuttgart's second team, playing in the Regionalliga (third division), after helping the VfB to win the German B-Junior Championship (2004) and German A-Junior Championship (2005) ahead of his senior career.

Ahead of the 2006–07 season, Tasci was promoted to the club's Bundesliga side. After being included as an unused substitute in a match against 1. FC Nürnberg, Tasci had his professional debut against Arminia Bielefeld on 20 August 2006; the match—the second of the season—was a 3–2 win in which Tasci was substituted for injured Danish striker Jon Dahl Tomasson in the 68th minute. His first goal followed a week later in a game against Borussia Dortmund in a 1–3 defeat. His second goal of the season came on 29 October 2006, in a 3–0 win over Schalke 04. Shortly after, Tasci signed a contract that ran until 2010 with the club. Throughout the 2006–07 season, Tasci received a handful of first team appearances, playing in either the right–back and centre–back positions for the side. However, he was soon plagued with suspension following his sending–off, in a 4–1 loss against 1. FC Nürnberg on 27 January 2007 and injuries. Despite this, Tasci helped VfB Stuttgart beat Energie Cottbus to win 2–1 and claim their first Bundesliga title in 15 years in the last game of the season. However, in the final of the DFB-Pokal, he came on for Sami Khedira in extra time when Stuttgart lost 3–2 to Nürnberg. Reflecting about Tasci's season, Manager Armin Veh said of his involvement with the club: "He is a big surprise and with his 20 years plays well beyond his years." At the end of the 2006–07 season, Tasci had made thirty–one appearances and scoring two times in all competitions.

In the 2007–08 season, Tasci made a strong performance against Schalke in the opening game; kicker described his performance as clever and cool. He continued to regain his first team place for the side. Tasci then made his Champions League debut on matchday one, as Stuttgart lost 2–1 to Rangers. He scored his first goal of the season in a 4–1 loss against Hamburger SV on 20 October 2007. At the end of the 2007–08 season, Tasci made twenty–nine appearances and scoring once in all competitions; most of which he missed were due to injuries.

In the 2008–09 season, Tasci was paired with Khalid Boulahrouz in the centre-back position at the start of the season. In the qualification round of the UEFA Cup against Hungarian side Győri ETO, he scored his first European goal in a 2–1 victory, taking his club to the next round. In December 2008, his manager and mentor Armin Veh was sacked following the club's run of defeats. On 4 April 2009, Tasci scored his first league goal of the season in a 2–1 win over VfL Bochum. He missed the rest of the season after injuring his knee in a 2–0 loss against Eintracht Frankfurt on 25 April 2009. As a result, he was required to have surgery but decided not to have it, ending his 2008–09 season. At the end of the 2008–09 season, Tasci went on to make forty appearances and scoring two times in all competitions.

At the start of the 2009–10 season, Tasci made his return to the first team from injury, starting the whole game, in a 2–0 loss against VfL Wolfsburg. In a follow–up match against SC Freiburg, Tasci captained the side for the first time, as he helped Stuttgart beat them 4–2. On 29 August 2009, Tasci extended his contract with Stuttgart until the summer of 2014. As a result, buy-out clause was included as part of signing a new contract. It came after when Tasci was in a contract negotiation with the club. In his first half of the season, Tasci captained two more matches in the absence of Thomas Hitzlsperger. He scored his first Champions League goal as Stuttgart drew 1–1 with Romanian side Unirea Urziceni in the group stage matchday two on 29 September 2009. By November, however, he sustained "a stress fracture in his foot" that could have put him out for the remainder of the season. But he recovered after a few weeks and returned to the first team against Bayer Leverkusen on 29 November 2018, which was then followed–up by scoring his first goal of the Bundesliga season, in a 1–1 draw against VfL Bochum. Following Hitzlsperger removal of captaincy, Tasci was reportedly furious over not being chosen as a vice-captain. On 12 March 2010, he scored his second league goal of the season, in a 2–1 loss against Schalke 04. A week later on 19 March 2010, Tasci was declared injured as he suffered an adductor problem. Shortly after declaring fit and returning as an unused substitute in a match against Bayern Munich, Tasci returned to the starting lineup against Borussia Mönchengladbach on 3 April 2010, starting the whole game, in a 2–1 win. Later in the 2009–10 season, Tasci made thirty-eight appearances and scoring two times in all competition; having missed some matches, due to recurrence of injuries he sustained.

At the start of the 2010–11 season, Tasci attracted interest from clubs around Europe. Stuttgart's league rival Hamburger SV as well as foreign clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur and Juventus reportedly expressed their desire to sign him. This move was denied by his agent; he said that Tasci would stay at Stuttgart only. On 15 July 2010, Tasci expressed his desire to stay at the club. Tasci made his first appearance of the season, in a 3–2 loss against Borussia Dortmund. He scored his first goal for the club in the Europa League group stage matchday one in a 3–0 win over Young Boys. He then suffered a thigh problem that kept him out for a long time. In late November, Tasci returned to training with a bandage on his right knee. Once again, he was on the sideline after experiencing ongoing problems with his thigh injury despite reporting himself fit. He returned to the field on 19 December 2010 in the match against Bayern Munich, which Stuttgart lost 5–3. Following this, Tasci continued to regain his first team place for the rest of the 2010–11 season. At the end of the 2010–11 season, which he made thirty–two appearances and scoring once in all competitions, he continued to attract interest from Zenit Saint Petersburg, Tottenham Hotspur, Málaga and Arsenal.

In the 2011–12 season, Tasci continued to regain his first team place at the start of the season. Tasci scored his first goal of the season in a 3–0 win over Hannover 96 on 10 September. A month later, on 29 October 2011, he scored his second in a 1–1 draw against Borussia Dortmund. Halfway through the 2011–12 season, on 12 January 2012, he was appointed the new captain of VfB Stuttgart by Bruno Labbadia. Seven days before being appointed, Tasci and Cristian Molinaro were involved in an incident at training. Tasci's third goal came on 10 April 2012 in a 3–1 win over FC Augsburg. Despite suffering injuries during the 2011–12 seasonm Tasci went on to make thirty appearances and scoring three times in all competitions.

Ahead of the 2012–13 season, Tasci revealed that Spanish club Barcelona was interested in signing him. But in late July, he said that though he was linked with a move to Barcelona, Milan and Manchester City, the clubs had not officially approached him. This occurred as the club was making budget cuts, including the wages bill. Since the start of the 2012–13 season, Tasci remained as captain of Vfb Stuttgart once again. In late–September, he injured his achilles tendon that kept him out for several weeks. He returned to the starting lineup against Hamburger SV on 21 October 2012, which saw Stuttgart won 1–0. A month later, on 22 November 2012, he scored his first goal for the club in a Europa League 5–1 win over Steaua București to help the club progress to the knockout stage. On 1 December 2012, he received a straight red card for a serious foul play on Milorad Peković in a 1–0 victory over SpVgg Greuther Fürth. Later in April 2013, he was sidelined as he suffered from an achilles tendon rupture. It wasn't until on 11 May 2013 when he made his return to the starting lineup, starting the whole game as captain, in a 2–1 win over Schalke 04. In the DFB-Pokal final, he captained Stuttgart for the match, which the club lost 3–2 to Bayern Munich. At the end of the 2012–13 season, Tasci went on to make thirty–nine appearances and scoring once in all competitions.

Ahead of the 2013–14 season, Tasci said he was aiming to make progress to sign a new contract, having expressed a desire to prolong his contract to stay at Stuttgart, as he had one year left to his contract. At the start of the 2013–14 season, however, he sustained an injury during a match against Mainz 05 in the opening game of the season and was replaced by Konstantin Rausch. After the match, it was revealed that he had torn his lateral meniscus following his treatment, in what turned out to be his last appearance for VfB Stuttgart.

### Spartak Moscow

#### 2013–2018

On 30 August 2013, Tasci moved to Russian Premier League side Spartak Moscow for an undisclosed fee. Upon leaving Stuttgart, he told the press, "It was not an easy decision. The present decision is not a decision against VfB Stuttgart, but for the new task. I had an incredibly great time at VfB, have played in the youth here, then I turned pro and recently been the captain. I have always said that I am a VfBler and that I will remain."

Immediately after joining the club, his debut was delayed by the injuries he sustained while at Stuttgart. He made his first appearance with the club on 2 October 2013 when he appeared in training. After damaging his meniscus, however, Tasci's debut for Spartak Moscow was delayed further to January following an operation. He made his debut for the club on 17 March 2014 in a 2–2 draw against Anzhi Makhachkala. In April 2014, Izvestia reported that Tasci could be leaving Spartak Moscow, leading to interest from Turkish sides Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş. Despite this, Tasci went on to make two more appearances in the 2013–14 season, adding his tally to three.

In the 2014–15 season, under the new management of Murat Yakin, Tasci made his first appearance of the season against Dynamo Moscow on 10 August 2014, coming on as a substitute, as Spartak Moscow won 2–1. He then became a first team regular for Spartak Moscow. After suffered a calf injury in late–October, Tasci returned to the starting lineup and then scored his first Spartak goal on 2 November 2014, in a 3–3 draw against Kuban Krasnodar. Towards the end of the 2014–15 season, Tasci was reportedly offered a new contract by the club. However, this was denied by the club. Despite being sidelined further during the 2014–15 season, Tasci went on to make twenty–three appearances and scoring once in all competitions.

In the 2015–16 season, Tasci started the season well when he scored his first goal of the season, in a 2–2 draw against FC Ufa in the opening game of the season, and was named Team of the Week for his performance. In the next three matches, he helped the side win all the three matches with three clean sheets. A month later, his second goal for the side came on 23 September 2015, in a 7–0 win over Volga Nizhny Novgorod in the fifth round of the Russian Cup. Tasci then started in every match for the side since the start of the season. Despite being sidelined for one match in the first half of the 2015–16 season, Tasci went on to make seventeen appearances and scoring two times in all competitions.

In the 2016–17 season, Tasci returned to Spartak Moscow's first team after spending the second half of the previous season with Bayern Munich. He continued to regain his first team place at the start of te season, appearing in the first three league matches that saw Spartak Moscow make a good start. However, he soon found himself on the substitute bench in the number of matches. During a 2–1 win over Rubin Kazan on 5 December 2016, Tasci started the match and played until the 63rd minute when he suffered a knee injury. While on the sidelines, the January transfer window saw Tasci, once again, linked a move away from the club, with clubs, such as Trabzonspor, Southampton and Crystal Palace. But Tasci stayed at the club, stating that he wanted to help the club win the league, as they are the serious contender to win the league this season. By the end of February, he returned to full training after spending two months on the sidelines. Upon returning to the starting lineup, Tasci regained his first team place for the side for the rest of the season. In a 2–2 draw against FC Krasnodor on 5 March 2017, he scored an own goal to give the opposition team an equaliser. Eventually, he helped the side win the league after beating Tom Tomsk 1–0 win their first league title in fifteen years. Despite being sidelined on two occasions during the 2016–17 season, Tasci went on to make nineteen appearances in all competitions.

Ahead of the 2017–18 season, however, Tasci suffered a toe injury during the club's pre–season training and sidelined at the start of the season. It wasn't until on 9 August 2017 when he made his return to the starting lineup and set up a goal for Zé Luís to score the second goal of the game, in a 2–0 win over Arsenal Tula. However, his return was short–lived after he suffered a thigh injury during a 0–0 draw against KA-Khabarovsk on 27 August 2017 and was sidelined for almost two weeks. But he made his return to the starting lineup on 17 September 2017, in a 2–2 draw against FC Tosno. After returning to the first team, Tasci continued to regain his place in the first team. By October, however, Russia media reported that Tasci rejected a new contract offer from the club. But in December 2017, he spoke about his future with the club and revealed the club is in the ongoing negotiation contract with him. However, on 22 February 2018 in the return leg against Athletic Bilbao in the round of 32 of the UEFA Europa League, he was substituted early in the first half after suffering a muscle injury and the injury resulted him sidelined for a month. Later in the 2017–18 season, Tasci lost his first team place at Spartak Moscow, due to further injuries and demotion to the substitute bench. Despite this, he finished the 2017–18 season, making twenty–two appearances in all competitions.

In March 2018, Tasci rejected a contract offer from Spartak Moscow once again and was expected to leave the club at the end of the 2017–18 season. It was later confirmed that he left Spartak upon the expiration of his contract on 30 June 2018.

#### Loan to Bayern Munich

Tasci was linked with a move to Turkish side Trabzonspor in the January transfer window at one point, with Douglas rumoured to be moving in the opposite direction, but the transaction never materialised. Tasci had stated himself that he was staying at Spartak Moscow. However, on 1 February 2016, he returned to the Bundesliga, signing for the title holders and league leaders Bayern Munich on loan for the rest of the season, amid an injury crisis in defence.

His sojourn at Bayern was immediately interrupted when Tasci suffered a concussion in training and was sidelined for weeks. He made his debut on 20 February, starting in a 3–1 home win over Darmstadt 98 at the Allianz Arena before being substituted after playing 53 minutes by Juan Bernat. Tasci was soon relegated to the substitutes bench for the rest of the season, as the club went on to win the league. At the end of the 2015–16 season, during which he made three appearances, Tasci said that he regretted joining the club, citing lack of playing time. The club decided not to take up an option to sign Tasci on a permanent basis.

### İstanbul Başakşehir

On 5 January 2019, having spent six-months as a free agent, he finally moved to Turkey to join title contender İstanbul Başakşehir. Upon joining the club, Tasci said it was a dream for him to play in Turkey.

Tasci made his debut, playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–0 win over Hatayspor in the first leg round of 16 of the Turkish Cup. It wasn't until 18 February 2019 that he made his league debut for Başakşehir, playing the entire match in a 1–0 win over Antalyaspor, for which he earned the praise of the Turkish media. However, during a 2–1 win over Fenerbahçe on 9 March 2019, Tasci was substituted after a tackle from Joseph Attamah.

## International career

Because of his Turkish descent and German birth, he was eligible to play internationally for either Germany or Turkey, but in October 2006 he decided to play for Germany despite interest from Turkey. Tasci explained his decision by saying, "It was a decision for Germany and not against Turkey, but in the end, it's German coach Joachim Löw, who made the most effort for me to come."

### Youth career

On 12 September 2005, Tasci made his Germany U19 debut in a 1–1 draw against China U19. He went on to make two more appearances for the U19 side.

On 30 August 2006, Tasci played his only match for the Germany U20 team, when he started in a 1–0 win against Switzerland before being substituted.

Two months later, Tasci was called up by the Germany under-21 team for the first time, but did not play. Tasci made his debut for the Germany under-21 team on 6 February 2007 in a 2–0 win against Scotland, in what turns out to have been his only appearance for the U21 side.

### Senior career

In August 2007, Tasci was called up to the Germany's senior team for the first time but did not play. He went on to make his senior international debut for Germany on 20 August 2008 in a friendly match against Belgium in Nuremberg, which they won 2–0. The debut came exactly two years after his Bundesliga debut.

He was called up to the Germany squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa by coach Löw, being the second player of Turkish extraction in the squad, along with Mesut Özil. Tasci made his World Cup debut as a substitute in Germany's third place match against Uruguay, coming on in the 91st minute for Özil. He struggled to touch the ball in his 125 seconds on the pitch, prompting VfB Stuttgart sporting director Jochen Schneider to say, "But for Serdar Tasci[,] the World Cup from a purely personal point of view was certainly not satisfactory."

Tasci had hoped to return to the national side one day, but never played for Germany again.

## Personal life

While playing for Stuttgart, Tasci left school in February 2007, four months before he was due to leave. Although he said he intended eventually to study sports management, the decision apparently upset his mother, herself a teacher, as she wanted him to finish school. His father, an excavator, was apparently less distressed at the decision. Tasci later revealed that his mother had indeed wanted Tasci to pay more attention to school, but that his father wanted him to be a footballer, since he had given him his first football boots. In the end, he did not disappoint either his mother or father, as he studied well. Because of this, he decided to become a footballer after making a decision to continue his studies or become a footballer. Tasci also revealed that his father is now his agent.

Tasci is a devout Muslim. In addition speaking German, Tasci speaks Turkish and currently learning Russian. He has one sister.

In August 2013, the owner of a website faced legal action when he used Tasci's name on his social network page. In June 2007, Tasci visited his parents' hometown, Artvin, where he received a plaque at Yusufeli Sports Club in honour of his memory.

## Career statistics

### Club

- 1.Includes DFB-Pokal and Russian Cup.
- 2.Includes UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup/Europa League.

### International

## Honours

VfB Stuttgart

- Bundesliga: 2006–07

Bayern Munich

- Bundesliga: 2015–16
- DFB-Pokal: 2015–16

Spartak Moscow

- Russian Premier League: 2016–17
- Russian Super Cup: 2017

German association football player

German expatriate sportspeople in Russia

Germany men's under-21 international footballers

Germany men's youth international footballers

Men's association football central defenders


Michelle Williams (actress)

Michelle Ingrid Williams (born September 9, 1980) is an American actress. Known primarily for starring in small-scale independent films with dark or tragic themes, she has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for five Academy Awards and a Tony Award.

Williams, a daughter of politician and trader Larry R. Williams, began her career with television guest appearances and made her film debut in the family film Lassie in 1994. She gained emancipation from her parents at age fifteen, and soon achieved recognition for her leading role as Jen Lindley in the teen drama television series Dawson's Creek (1998–2003). This was followed by low-profile films, before having her breakthrough with the drama film Brokeback Mountain (2005).

Williams went on to receive critical acclaim for playing emotionally troubled women coping with loss or loneliness in the independent dramas Wendy and Lucy (2008), Blue Valentine (2010), and Manchester by the Sea (2016). She won two Golden Globes for portraying Marilyn Monroe in the drama My Week with Marilyn (2011) and Gwen Verdon in the miniseries Fosse/Verdon (2019), in addition to a Primetime Emmy Award for the latter. Her highest-grossing releases came with the thriller Shutter Island (2010), the fantasy film Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), the musical The Greatest Showman (2017), and the superhero films Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021). Williams has also led major studio films, such as Ridley Scott's crime thriller All the Money in the World (2017) and Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022).

On Broadway, Williams starred in revivals of the musical Cabaret in 2014 and the drama Blackbird in 2016, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She is an advocate for equal pay in the workplace. Consistently private about her personal life, Williams has a daughter from her relationship with actor Heath Ledger and was briefly married to musician Phil Elverum. She has two children with her second husband, theater director Thomas Kail.

## Life and career

### 1980–1995: Early life

Michelle Ingrid Williams was born on September 9, 1980, in Kalispell, Montana, to Carla, a homemaker, and Larry R. Williams, an author and commodities trader. She has Norwegian ancestry and her family has lived in Montana for generations. Her father twice ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate as a Republican Party nominee. In Kalispell, Williams lived with her three paternal half-siblings and her younger sister, Paige. Although she has described her family as "not terribly closely knit", she shared a close bond with her father, who taught her to fish and shoot, and encouraged her to become a keen reader. Williams has recounted fond memories of growing up in the vast landscape of Montana. When she was nine, the family moved to San Diego, California. She has said of the experience, "It was less happy probably by virtue of it being my preteen years, which are perhaps unpleasant wherever you go." She mostly kept to herself and was self-reliant.

Williams became interested in acting at an early age when she saw a local production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She performed in an amateur production of the musical Annie, and her parents would drive her from San Diego to Los Angeles to audition for parts. Her first screen appearance was as Bridget Bowers, a young woman who seduces Mitch Buchannon's son, Hobie, in a 1993 episode of the television series Baywatch. The following year, she made her film debut in the family movie Lassie, about the bond between a young boy (played by Tom Guiry) and the titular dog. Williams played the love interest of Guiry's character, which led Steven Gaydos of Variety to take note of her "winning perf". She next took on guest roles in the television sitcoms Step by Step and Home Improvement, and appeared as the child form of Sil, an alien played in adulthood by Natasha Henstridge, in the 1995 science fiction film Species.

By 1995, Williams had completed ninth grade at Santa Fe Christian Schools in San Diego. She disliked going there as she did not get along well with other students. To focus on her acting pursuits, she left the school and enrolled for in-home tutoring. At age fifteen, with her parents' approval, Williams filed for emancipation from them, so she could better pursue her acting career with less interference from child labor work laws. To comply with the emancipation guidelines, she completed her high school education in nine months through correspondence. She later regretted not getting a proper education.

### 1996–2000: Dawson's Creek and transition to adult roles

Following her emancipation, Williams moved to Los Angeles and lived by herself in Burbank. Describing her initial experience in the city, she said, "There are some really disgusting people in the world, and I met some of them." To support herself, she took assignments in low-budget films and commercials. She had minor roles in the television films My Son is Innocent (1996) and Killing Mr. Griffin (1997), and the drama A Thousand Acres (1997), which starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange. Williams later described her early work as "embarrassing", saying she had taken those roles purely to support herself as she "didn't have any taste [or] ideals". In 1997, unhappy with the roles she was being offered, Williams collaborated with two other actors to write a script named Blink, about prostitutes living in a Nevada brothel, which despite being sold to a production company was never made. Having learned to trade under her father's guidance, seventeen-year-old Williams entered the Robbins World Cup Championship, a futures trading contest; with a return of 1,000%, she became the first woman to win the title and the third-highest winner of all time (her father ranks first).

In 1998, Williams began starring in the teen drama television series Dawson's Creek, created by Kevin Williamson and co-starring James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson. The series aired for six seasons from January 1998 to May 2003 and featured Williams as Jen Lindley, a precocious New York-based teenager who relocates to the fictional town of Capeside. The series was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, where Williams lived for the six years of shooting. Reviewing the first season for The New York Times, Caryn James called it a soap opera that was "redeemed by intelligence and sharp writing" but found Williams to be "too earnest to suit this otherwise shrewdly tongue-in-cheek cast". Ray Richmond of Variety labeled it "an addictive drama with considerable heart" and considered all four leads appealing. The series was a ratings success and raised Williams' profile. Her first film release since the start of Dawson's Creek was Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), a slasher film starring Jamie Lee Curtis. The seventh installment in the Halloween film series, it featured Williams as one of several teenagers traumatized by a murderer. It grossed \$55 million domestically against its \$17 million budget.

Williams has credited Dawson's Creek as "the best acting class", but she also admitted to not having fully invested herself in the show as "my taste was in contradiction to what I was doing every single day." She would film the series for nine months each year and spend the remaining time playing against type in independent features, which she considered a better fit for her personality. She said the financial stability of a steady job empowered her to act in such films. Williams found her first such role in the comedy Dick (1999), a parody of the Watergate scandal, in which she and Kirsten Dunst played teenagers obsessed with Richard Nixon. Praising the film's political satire, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly credited both actresses for playing their roles with "screwball verve". Dick failed to recoup its \$13 million investment. In the same year Williams played a small part in But I'm a Cheerleader, a satirical comedy about conversion therapy.

Keen to play challenging roles in adult-oriented projects, Williams spent the summer of 1999 starring in an off-Broadway play titled Killer Joe. Written by Tracy Letts, it is a black comedy about a dysfunctional family who kills their matriarch for insurance money; she was cast as the family's youngest daughter. The production featured gruesome violence and required Williams to perform a nude scene. Her socially conservative parents were displeased with it, but she said she found it "cathartic and freeing". Her next role was in the HBO television film If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000), a drama about three lesbian couples in different time periods. Williams agreed to the project after ensuring that a sex scene with co-star Chloë Sevigny was pertinent to the story and not meant to titillate. In a mixed review of the film, Ken Tucker criticized Williams for overplaying her character's eagerness. When asked about playing a series of sexual roles, Williams stated, "I don't think of any of them as sexy, hot girls. They were just defined at an early age by the fact that others saw them that way." She subsequently made an effort to play roles that were not sexualized.

### 2001–2005: Independent films and Brokeback Mountain

The British film Me Without You (2001), about an obsessive female friendship, starred Williams and Anna Friel. Williams played Holly, an insecure bibliophile, a part that came close to her personality. The writer-director Sandra Goldbacher was initially reluctant to cast an American in a British part but was impressed by Williams's self-deprecating humor and a "European stillness". Roger Ebert praised Williams's British accent and found her to be "cuddly and smart both at once". Williams returned to the stage the following year in a production of Mike Leigh's farce Smelling a Rat. Her part, that of a scatterbrained teenager exploring her sexuality, led Karl Levett of Backstage to credit her for being "a first-class creative comedienne". She played a supporting role in the Christina Ricci-starring Prozac Nation, a drama about depression based on Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir.

Dawson's Creek completed its run in 2003, and Williams was satisfied with how it had run its course. She relocated to New York City soon after. She had supporting parts in two art-house films that year, the drama The United States of Leland and the comedy-drama The Station Agent. In the former, starring Ryan Gosling, she played the grieving sister of a murdered boy; it was described by The Globe and Mail's Liam Lacey as "neither an insightful nor well-made film". The Station Agent, about a lonely dwarf (played by Peter Dinklage), featured Williams as a librarian who develops an attraction towards him. Critically acclaimed, the film's cast was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast. On stage, Williams played Varya in a 2004 production of Anton Chekhov's drama The Cherry Orchard, alongside Linda Emond and Jessica Chastain, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The theater critic Ben Brantley wrote that "she cannily plays her natural vibrancy against the anxiety that has worn the young Varya into a permanent high-strung sullenness."

German filmmaker Wim Wenders wrote the film Land of Plenty (2004), which investigates anxiety and disillusionment in a post-9/11 America, with Williams in mind. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised Wenders' thoughtful examination of the subject and took note of Williams's screen appeal. She received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for the film. The actor next appeared in Imaginary Heroes, a drama about a family coping with their son's suicide, and played an impressionable young woman fixated on mental health in the period film A Hole in One. Williams returned to the comedic genre with The Baxter, in which she played a geeky secretary. The film received negative reviews; Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe wrote, "Only when Williams is around does the movie seem human, true, and funny. Even in her slapstick, there's pain." As with her other films during this period, it received only a limited release and was not widely seen.

Williams's film breakthrough came later in 2005 when she appeared in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, about the romance between two men, Ennis and Jack (played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively). Impressed with her performance in The Station Agent, the casting director Avy Kaufman recommended Williams to Lee. He found a vulnerability in her and cast her as Alma, the wife of Ennis, who discovers her husband's homosexual infidelity. The actor was emotionally affected by the story and, despite her limited screen time, she was drawn to playing a woman constricted by the social mores of the time. Deeming her a standout among the cast, Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine praised Williams for "fascinatingly spiking her unspoken resentment for her sham of a marriage with a hint of compassion for Ennis's secret suffering". Brokeback Mountain proved to be her most widely seen film to that point, grossing \$178 million against its \$14 million budget. It won three Academy Awards and she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Williams began dating Ledger while working on the film. The couple cohabited in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, New York, and in 2005, she gave birth to their daughter Matilda.

### 2006–2010: Work with auteurs

Williams had two film releases in 2006. She first featured opposite Paul Giamatti in the drama The Hawk Is Dying. Five months after giving birth to her daughter, she returned to work on Ethan Hawke's directorial venture The Hottest State, based on his own novel. Leslie Felperin of Variety found her role to be too brief. Following the awards season success of Brokeback Mountain, Williams was unsure of what to do next. After six months of indecision, she agreed to a small part in Todd Haynes's I'm Not There (2007), a musical inspired by the life of Bob Dylan. She was then drawn to the part of an enigmatic seductress named S in the 2008 crime thriller Deception. The film, which co-starred Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, was considered by critics to be middling and predictable. In her next release, Incendiary, based on Chris Cleave's novel of the same name, Williams reteamed with McGregor to play a woman whose family is killed in a terrorist attack. A reviewer for The Independent called the film "sloppy" and added that Williams deserved better.

Williams's two other releases of 2008 were better received. The screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was impressed with her comedic timing in Dick and thus cast her in his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, an ensemble experimental drama headlined by Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was a box office bomb and polarized critics, although Roger Ebert named it the best film of the decade. Two days after finishing work on Synecdoche, New York, Williams began filming Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy, playing the part of a poor and lonesome young woman traveling with her dog and looking for employment. With a shoestring budget of \$300,000, the film was shot on location in Portland, Oregon, with a largely volunteer crew. Williams had just separated from Ledger and was relieved for the anonymity the project provided. She was pleased with Reichardt's minimalistic approach and identified with her character's self-sufficiency and fortitude. Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times found her performance to be "remarkable not only for its depth but for its stillness" and Mick LaSalle commended her for effectively conveying a "lived-in sense of always having been close to the economic brink".

Williams was filming in Sweden for her next project, Mammoth (2009), when news broke that Ledger had died of an accidental intoxication from prescription drugs. Although Williams continued filming, she later said, "It was horrible. I don't remember most of it." In her first public statement, a week after his death, she expressed her heartbreak and described Ledger's spirit as surviving in their daughter. Later that month she attended his memorial and funeral services.

Mammoth was directed by the Swedish director Lukas Moodysson and featured Williams and Gael García Bernal as a couple dealing with issues stemming from globalization. Her role was that of an established surgeon, a part she deemed herself too young to logically play. In the same year, she co-starred with Natalie Portman in a Roman Polanski-directed faux perfume commercial called Greed. For her next project, Martin Scorsese cast her opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the psychological thriller Shutter Island. Based on Dennis Lehane's novel, it featured her as a depressed housewife who drowns her own children. The high-profile production marked a departure for her, and she found it difficult to adjust to the slower pace of filming. In preparation, she read case studies on infanticide. After finishing work on the film in 2008, Williams admitted that playing a series of troubled women coupled with her own personal difficulties had taken an emotional toll. She took a year off work to focus on her daughter. Shutter Island was released in 2010 and was a commercial success, earning over \$294 million worldwide.

Williams had first read the script for Derek Cianfrance's romantic drama Blue Valentine at age 21. When funding came through after years of delay, she was reluctant to accept the offer as filming in California would take her away from her daughter for too long. Keen to have her in the film, Cianfrance decided to film it near Brooklyn, where Williams lived. Co-starring Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine is about the tribulations faced by a disillusioned married couple. Before production began, Cianfrance had Williams and Gosling live together for a month on a stipend that matched their characters' income. This exercise led to conflicts between them, which proved conducive for filming their characters' deteriorating marriage. On set, she and Gosling practiced method acting by improvising several scenes. The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. A. O. Scott found Williams to be "heartbreakingly precise in every scene" and commended the duo for being "exemplars of New Method sincerity, able to be fully and achingly present every moment on screen together". She received Best Actress nominations at the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award ceremonies.

In her final film release of 2010, she reunited with Reichardt for the western Meek's Cutoff. Set in 1845, it is based on an ill-fated historical incident on the Oregon Trail, in which the frontier guide Stephen Meek led a wagon train through a desert. Williams starred as one of the passengers on the wagon, a feisty young mother who is suspicious of Meek. In preparation, she took lessons on firing a gun and learned to knit. Filming in extreme temperatures in the desert proved arduous for her, though she enjoyed the challenge. Writing for The Arizona Republic, Bill Goodykoontz praised the subtlety both in the film and in Williams's performance.

### 2011–2016: My Week with Marilyn and Broadway

In 2011, Williams portrayed Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, a drama depicting the troubled production of the 1957 comedy The Prince and the Showgirl, based on accounts by Colin Clark, who worked on the latter film. Initially skeptical about playing Monroe, as she had little in common with her looks or personality, Williams spent six months researching her by reading biographies, diaries and notes, and studying her posture, gait, and mannerisms. She also gained weight for the part, bleached her hair blonde, and on days of filming, underwent over three hours of makeup. She sang three songs for the film's soundtrack and recreated a performance of Monroe singing and dancing to "Heat Wave". Roger Ebert considered Williams's performance to be the film's prime asset and credited her for successfully evoking multiple aspects of Monroe's personality. Peter Travers opined that despite not physically resembling Monroe, she had "with fierce artistry and feeling [illuminated] Monroe's insights and insecurities about herself at the height of her fame". For her portrayal, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and received a second consecutive Oscar nomination.

In Sarah Polley's romance Take This Waltz (2011), co-starring Seth Rogen and Luke Kirby, Williams played a married writer attracted to her neighbor. Though the actor considered it to be a light-hearted film, Jenny McCartney of The Daily Telegraph found a darker undertone to it and favorably compared its theme to that of Blue Valentine. To play a part that would appeal to her daughter, Williams starred as Glinda in Sam Raimi's fantasy picture Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Based on the Oz children's books, it served as a prequel to the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz. It marked her first appearance in a film involving special effects and she credited Raimi for making her comfortable with the process. The film earned over \$490 million worldwide to rank as one of her highest-grossing releases. Suite Française, a period drama that Williams filmed in 2013, was released in a few territories in 2015 but was not theatrically distributed in America. She later admitted to being displeased with how the film turned out, adding that she found it hard to predict the quality of a project during production. Eager to work in a different medium and finding it tough to obtain film roles that enabled her to maintain her parental commitments, Williams spent the next few years working on the stage.

Her desire to star in a musical led Williams to the role of Sally Bowles in a 2014 revival of Cabaret, which was staged at Studio 54 and marked her Broadway debut. Jointly directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, it tells the story of a free-spirited cabaret performer (Williams) in 1930s Berlin during the rise of the Nazi Party. Before production began, she spent four months privately rehearsing with music and dance coaches. She read the works of Christopher Isherwood, whose novel Goodbye to Berlin inspired the musical, and visited Berlin to research Isherwood's life and inspirations. Her performance received mixed reviews; Jesse Green of Vulture praised her singing and commitment to the role, while Newsday's Linda Winer thought her portrayal lacked depth. The rigorousness of the assignment led Williams to consider Cabaret her toughest project.

Challenged by her work on Cabaret, Williams was eager to continue working on the stage. She found a part in a 2016 revival of the David Harrower play Blackbird. Set entirely in the lunchroom of an office, it focuses on a young woman (Williams), who confronts a much older man (played by Jeff Daniels) for having sexual relations with her when she was twelve years old. Williams, who had not seen previous stagings of the play, was drawn to the ambiguity of her role and found herself unable to detach from it after each performance. Hilton Als of The New Yorker considered her "daring and nonjudgmental embodiment of her not easily assimilable character" to be the production's highlight. She received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play nomination for Blackbird.

Williams returned to film in 2016 with supporting roles in two small-scale dramas, Certain Women and Manchester by the Sea. The former marked her third collaboration with Kelly Reichardt and told three interconnected narratives based on the short stories of Maile Meloy. As with their previous collaborations, the film featured minimal dialogue and required Williams to act through silences. Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea starred Casey Affleck as Lee, a depressed man who separates from his wife, Randy (Williams), following the tragic death of their children. Williams agreed to the project to work with Lonergan, whom she admired, and in preparation she visited Manchester to interview local mothers about their lives. She also worked with a dialect coach to speak in a Massachusetts accent. Despite the film's bleakness, she found a connection with her character's desire to reclaim her life in the face of tragedy. Several critics hailed Williams's climactic monologue, in which Randy confronts Lee, as the film's highlight; Justin Chang termed it an "astonishing scene that rises from the movie like a small aria of heartbreak." She received her fourth Oscar nomination, her second in the Best Supporting Actress category.

### 2017–present: Mainstream films, Fosse/Verdon, and marriages

Following a brief appearance in Todd Haynes's drama Wonderstruck (2017), Williams appeared in the musical The Greatest Showman. Inspired by P. T. Barnum's creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, the film featured her as Charity, the wife of Barnum (played by Hugh Jackman). She likened her character's joyful disposition to that of Grace Kelly, and she sang two songs for the film's soundtrack. The film emerged as one of her most successful, earning over \$434 million worldwide. Williams then took on her first leading film role since 2013 in Ridley Scott's crime thriller All the Money in the World. She starred as Gail Harris, whose son, John Paul Getty III, is kidnapped for ransom. She considered it a major opportunity, since she had not headlined a mainstream big-budget film before. A month prior to the film's release, Kevin Spacey, who originally played J. Paul Getty, was accused of sexual misconduct; he was replaced with Christopher Plummer, and Williams reshot her scenes days before the release deadline. The critic David Edelstein bemoaned that Williams's work had been overshadowed by the controversy and went on to praise her "marvelous performance", taking note of how she conveyed her character's grief "[t]hrough the tension in her body and intensity of her voice". She received her fifth Golden Globe nomination for the role. It was later reported that her co-star Mark Wahlberg had been paid \$1.5 million to Williams's \$1,000 for the reshoots, which sparked a discourse on gender pay gap in Hollywood.

In 2018, Williams married the musician Phil Elverum in a secret ceremony in the Adirondack Mountains. Her first film role of the year was as a haughty but insecure executive in the Amy Schumer-starring comedy I Feel Pretty, which satirizes body image issues among women. The comedic role, which required her to speak in a high-pitched voice, led Peter Debruge of Variety to term it "the funniest performance of her career". The film was a modest box office success. In a continued effort to work on different genres, Williams played Anne Weying in the superhero film Venom, co-starring Tom Hardy as the titular antihero. Influenced by the MeToo movement, she provided off-screen inputs regarding her character's wardrobe and dialogue, but the critic Peter Bradshaw found it to be "an outrageously boring and submissive role". Venom earned over \$855 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in which Williams has appeared.

Williams returned to the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 with After the Wedding, a remake of Susanne Bier's Danish film of the same name, in which she and Julianne Moore played roles portrayed by men in the original. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian considered the low-key part to be a better fit than her previous few roles. Fosse/Verdon, an FX miniseries about the troubled personal and professional relationship between Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, marked her first leading role on television since Dawson's Creek. Williams also served as an executive producer on the series, and was pleased not to have to negotiate to receive equal pay to her co-star Sam Rockwell. She said her experience of performing Cabaret on Broadway was conducive to her portrayal of Verdon. John Doyle of The Globe and Mail commended Williams for "play[ing] Verdon with a wonderfully controlled sense of the woman's total commitment to her art and craft while always standing on the edge of an emotional abyss." She won the Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Miniseries.

Elverum and Williams filed for divorce in April 2019; by November 2019, it was reported that they were no longer married. She later described the marriage as a "mistake". Later in 2019, Williams became engaged to the theater director Thomas Kail, with whom she worked on Fosse/Verdon; they married in March 2020. She gave birth to their son, Hart, later in 2020 and another child in 2022.

In 2021, Williams reprised the role of Anne Weying in the superhero sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It received mixed reviews, but grossed over \$500 million worldwide. In her fourth collaboration with Kelly Reichardt, Williams starred in the drama Showing Up (2022). For her role as a sculptor in it, she shadowed the artist Cynthia Lahti. Tim Robey of The Independent opined that Williams "thrives more intelligently than ever under Reichardt's watch here". Later in 2022, Williams starred in The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film about his childhood, in which she played Mitzi Fabelman, a character inspired by his mother. Spielberg had her in mind for the part after seeing her performance in Blue Valentine; in preparation, she heard recordings and watched home movies of his childhood. The film received critical acclaim; Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood labeled Williams "gut-wrenchingly great" and Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times wrote that she "really goes for it, attacking this part like someone who knows she’s been handed her signature role". She received further Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globe and Academy Award ceremonies.

## Public image and acting style

Describing Williams's off-screen persona, Debbie McQuoid of Stylist magazine wrote in 2016 that she is "predictably petite but her poise and posture make her seem larger than life". The journalist Andrew Anthony has described her as unpretentious, low-key, and unassuming. Charles McGrath of The New York Times considers her to be unlike a movie star and has called her "shy, earnest, thoughtful, and [...] a little wary of publicity". Williams has spoken about how she tries to balance her desire to be private and her wish to use her celebrity to speak out on issues such as sexism, gender pay gap, and sexual harassment. On Equal Pay Day in 2019, she utilized the pay gap controversy surrounding her film All the Money in the World to deliver an address at the United States Capitol urging passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act. During her 2020 Golden Globe acceptance speech for Fosse/Verdon, she advocated for the importance of women's and reproductive rights.

In the aftermath of her ex-partner Heath Ledger's death in January 2008, Williams became the subject of intense media scrutiny and was frequently stalked by paparazzi. She disliked the attention, saying it interfered with her work and made her self-conscious. Although reluctant to publicly discuss her romantic relationships, Williams was forthright in expressing her grief over Ledger's death, saying it had left a permanent hole in both her and her daughter's life. She has since affirmed her determination to look after her daughter in spite of her difficulties as a single parent. In 2018, she opened up about her relationship and marriage to Phil Elverum to provide grieving women with inspiration.

Williams prefers acting in small-scale independent films to high-profile, mainstream productions, finding this to be "a very natural expression of [her] interest". Elaine Lipworth of The Daily Telegraph has identified a theme of "dark, often tragic characters" in her career, and Katie O'Malley of Elle writes that she specializes in "playing strong, independent and forthright female characters". Susan Dominus of The New York Times considers her to be a "tragic embodiment of grief, in life and in art". Regarding her selection of roles, Williams has said she is drawn toward "people's failings, blind spots, inconsistencies". She agrees to a project on instinct, calling it an "un-thought out process". Describing her acting process in 2008, she stated:

> Acting sometimes reminds me of therapy in that the more you talk about a traumatic or profound event, the more it loses its emotional tension. [The trick is] to live in so much mystery, to rely on a feeling, an instinct, on faith, really, that everything I need is already inside me, and best I just don't block the exit.

Erica Wagner of Harper's Bazaar has praised Williams for combining "startlingly emotional performance with a sense of groundedness" and the critic David Thomson opines that she "can play anyone, without undue glamour or starriness". Adam Green of Vogue considers Williams's ability to reveal "the inner lives of her characters in unguarded moments" to be her trademark, and credits her for not "trading on her sex appeal" despite her willingness to perform nude scenes. Her Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan has stated that her versatility allows her to be "transformed, in her whole person" by the role she plays. Dominus also believes that she physically transforms herself "as if all her molecules have fallen apart and been reassembled to create a slightly different version of herself, the material attributes the same but the essence transformed". Describing her career in 2016, Boris Kachka of Elle termed it a metamorphosis from "celebrated indie ingenue to muscular, chameleonic movie star". In a 2022 readers' poll by Empire magazine, Williams was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time. The magazine attributed her success to playing "damaged, broken and hurt characters with such heartbreaking sensitivity, you can never see the seams".

The saffron Vera Wang gown Williams wore to the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 is regarded as one of the greatest Oscar dresses of all time. Williams has featured as the brand ambassador for the fashion label Band of Outsiders and the luxury brand Louis Vuitton. She has appeared in several advertisement campaigns for the latter company, and in 2015, she starred alongside Alicia Vikander in their short film named The Spirit of Travel.

## Acting credits and awards

According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and the box-office site Box Office Mojo, Williams's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films are The Station Agent (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Wendy and Lucy (2008), Blue Valentine (2010), Shutter Island (2010), Meek's Cutoff (2010), My Week with Marilyn (2011), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Manchester by the Sea (2016), Certain Women (2016), The Greatest Showman (2017), Venom (2018), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), and The Fabelmans (2022). Among her stage roles, she has appeared on Broadway in revivals of Cabaret in 2014 and Blackbird in 2016.

Williams has received five Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actress for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Manchester by the Sea (2016); and Best Actress for Blue Valentine (2010), My Week with Marilyn (2011), and The Fabelmans (2022). She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for My Week with Marilyn (2011) and Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for Fosse/Verdon (2019); she has been nominated five more times: Best Actress in a Drama for Blue Valentine (2010), All the Money in the World (2017), and The Fabelmans (2022); and Best Supporting Actress for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Manchester by the Sea (2016). Williams also won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for Fosse/Verdon (2019) and received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Blackbird.

American actress

Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners

Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners

Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead winners

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners

Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners