January 9: Announcing the seventh of our eight esteemed 2012 Matrix Award Honorees: Glenn Close, Actress/Producer, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Bring Change 2 Mind

Glenn Close is an Emmy, Golden Globe, Tony and SAG Award winning actress. She is currently starring in the title role of the feature film Albert Nobbs, opening nationally in the U.S. on January 27, 2012. In addition to starring in and producing the film, Close co-wrote the screenplay with John Banville, a Man Booker prize-winning novelist, and she wrote the lyrics to the film's original song "Lay Your Head Down." She has recently received both a Screen Actors Guild Nomination and a Golden Globe Awards nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Close won the Best Actress Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for her performance.

Close will soon begin her fifth season starring in the highly-acclaimed TV legal drama, Damages, for which she has won two Emmy Awards as "Best Actress in a Drama Series," a Golden Globe Award and was recently nominated for her third SAG Award as "Best Actress." Close also received an Emmy nomination for her role as Captain Monica Rawling on FX's The Shield. She received a SAG Award and a Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture for Television" for her performance in Andrei Konchalovsky's adaptation of The Lion in Winter. She also starred in and produced Jeff Bleckner's Serving in Silence: the Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, for which she won an acting Emmy.

Close made her film debut in George Roy Hill's The World According to Garp. Her performance earned Close her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for her performances in Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill; Barry Levinson's The Natural; Adrian Lyne's smash Fatal Attraction; and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons.

Glenn Close has also made her mark in the theater. Her professional theater, and Broadway, debut was in Harold Prince's revival of Love for Love. Other stage credits include Paul Giovanni's The Crucifer of Blood and Simone Benmussa's The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, for which she won an Obie Award. Close's first Tony Award Nomination came for her role in Joe Layton's musical Barnum and she subsequently won Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing, Death and the Maiden and Sunset Boulevard.

Beyond acting and producing, Close supports numerous non-profit organizations. In 2009, Glenn Close partnered with several major mental health organizations to launch BringChange2Mind.org, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to confronting, head-on, the stigma associated with mental illness. The idea for this campaign evolved out of Close's first-hand observation of battles with mental illness within her family. Close's sister Jessie is living with bipolar disorder and Jessie's son, Calen, is living with schizoaffective disorder. Close has volunteered at Fountain House, a globally-acclaimed, New York based, clubhouse model program that provides people with mental illness critical access to education, employment and community. Close and her family have participated in Public Service Announcements to help spread the mission of BringChange2Mind and tackle the fear and stigma surrounding mental illness.

Close also actively supports Puppies Behind Bars and their program Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who've Served Us. She recently co-directed, narrated and co-produced Pax, a documentary short subject that looks at the program and the affect it has had on one particular soldier, Sergeant Bill Campbell, who returned home from Iraq with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. The film played in film festivals around the country and won an Honorable Mention at the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. Close has also served on the Boards of Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee and The Sundance Institute.

Recognizing Glenn's many award-winning talents as an actress and a producer as well as her dedication to mental illness awareness, we are thrilled to present her as a 2012 Matrix Award Honoree.