Julianna Margulies was born June 8, 1966 in Spring Valley, New York. She was the youngest of three girls, her mother a former ballet dancer, and her father an advertising writer. Her parents divorced when she was 1 and her mother moved the children around a lot. From Paris to England back to America they went, Julianna got used to being the new kid in town, as quoted; was always the new kid in town, so I had to exceed to prove myself. And my mother was a hippie, a free spirit. There were no rules, except I wasn't allowed to watch TV." This is why she says, she is so hard on herself. The only thing she felt she herself could control was her yearning to succeed. She remembers throwing a 50-page, hand-illustrated high school research paper into a mud puddle because it got an A-minus.

Julianna wasn't todays typical teen who wanted to grow up to be a famous actress. She enjoyed art-history and visiting art museums. When she was about 13, Julianna returned to the states and at the age of fourteen, began High School in New Hampshire. Julianna felt she wasn't accepted at school. "Kids used to call me fat head and flounder lips, because I had big lips." she explained. She can remember crying to her mother because of this. After High School, Julianna went off to Sarah Lawrence College where she began performing in several on campus plays. She obtained a BA in Liberal arts and went on to New York City, in hopes of finding work as an actress. Until landing a role in "Out For Justice" (1991), Julianna mainly supported herself waitressing. Julianna also supported herself by packing up the estates inherited by “rich people on Park Avenue whose relatives had died.” She remembers “One day I was packing up these Baccarat glasses and I got a phone call from my boyfriend at the time: ‘They called! They’re flying you out tomorrow to do the movie!’ And I’m sitting there in overalls with soot on my face." So she packed up the rest of the glasses, went rushing back to Brooklyn on the train, grabbed her overnight bag, and went to the airport. "I’ll never forget them flying me first class. They knew my name—'Miss Margulies,' they kept saying. I was in heaven."

In 1994, Julianna landed her most well known role to date. The role of nurse Carol Hathaway on NBC's rating power house, ER. Her character was suppose to die in the pilot, but test audiences loved her, so she stayed. Julianna signed a 5 year contract, which when it expired she signed for another year. Glad she took our show,” says Clooney. “I got to make out with her.” Julianna is the only cast member of ER to have ever recieved an EMMY award, plus she has been awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series 2 years in a row(1998 & 1999). She was also one of 1998 People magazine's 50 most beautiful people.

In October, 1999 Julianna turned down an offer for $27 million that would keep her on ER for an additional 2 seasons. She said she felt the need to move on, that she had taken the Carol Hathaway character as far as she could. She plans to return to New York, perform on Broadway. She has just finished filming a TNT movie due to air in 2001 called "The Mists of Avalon". She appeared in the off-broadway show, "The Vagina Monologues" at the end of August in NY, and in mid-Oct in LA. Also due to begin March 8, 2001 is "The Ten Unknowns", starring Julianna Margulies and Donald Sutherland (MASH, Outbreak, Virus, Space Cowboys).