Jennifer Jason Leigh (born February 5, 1962) is an American actress.
Early life and career
Leigh was born
Jennifer L. Morrow in
Hollywood,
Los Angeles,
California, the daughter of
Combat! actor
Vic Morrow and
Pollock screenwriter
Barbara Turner.
Both of Leigh's parents were
Jewish, although Leigh was raised mostly without religion.
Leigh changed her last name, taking the middle name "Jason" in honor of a family friend,
Academy Award-winning actor
Jason Robards.
At the age of 14, she attended
Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in
Loch Sheldrake, New York and summer acting workshops given by
Lee Strasberg. She received her
Screen Actors Guild membership in an episode of the TV show
Baretta when she was 16.
Career
An episode of
The Waltons and several TV movies followed, including a portrayal of an
anorexic teenager in
The Best Little Girl in the World, for which Leigh dropped to under medical supervision. She made her screen debut as a
blind,
deaf, and
mute rape victim in the 1981
slasher film Eyes of a Stranger, which she dropped out of high school to play. In 1982, she played a teenager who gets
pregnant in
Cameron Crowe's high-school comedy
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which was directed by
Amy Heckerling and served as a launching pad for several then-unknown future stars besides Leigh, including
Sean Penn,
Judge Reinhold,
Forest Whitaker,
Eric Stoltz,
Anthony Edwards,
Phoebe Cates and
Nicolas Cage.
Leigh gravitated towards portraying fragile, damaged or
neurotic characters. She was initially cast as victims – a virginal princess kidnapped and raped by
mercenaries in
Flesh & Blood (1985), an innocent waitress pursued by
The Hitcher (1986), and a young woman on the verge of a
nervous breakdown in the seedy nightclub inherited from her uncle in
Heart of Midnight (1989).
It wasn't until 1990 that Leigh made a significant career breakthrough when she was voted the year's
Best Supporting Actress by both the
New York Film Critics Circle and the
Boston Society of Film Critics for her portrayals of two very different
prostitutes: first as a tough streetwalker in
Last Exit to Brooklyn, and then as a sweet waif whose dreams of suburban bliss are shattered by
sociopathic ex-con
Alec Baldwin in
Miami Blues. She then portrayed an undercover narcotics policewoman who becomes a junkie in the line of duty in
Rush (1991), and one of her signature roles: Hedy, the
psychotic “roommate from hell” in the thriller
Single White Female (1992). She then played a fast-talking, hard-as-nails reporter who has her heart melted by
Tim Robbins in the
Coen Brothers’
surreal comic fantasy
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and won many awards for her portrayal of the writer and poetess
Dorothy Parker in
Alan Rudolph's
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). For the latter, she received a
Golden Globe nomination and
Best Actress awards from the
National Society of Film Critics,
Chicago Film Critics Association and Fort Lauderdale Film Critics.
Next up was the role of Sadie Flood, an angry, drug-addicted barroom rock singer living in the shadow of her successful older sister (
Mare Winningham) in
Georgia (1995). For the role Leigh dropped to and sang all the songs live, including a 8½-minute version of
Van Morrison's "Take Me Back". Critic
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone wrote that "(Leigh's) fierce, funny, exasperating and deeply affecting portrayal commands attention";
James Berardinelli claimed, "There are times when it's uncomfortable to watch this performance because it's so powerful", while Kenneth Turan of the
Los Angeles Times said "Leigh’s exceptional performance tears you apart… we've never seen anything like it before." She won
Best Actress awards from the
New York Film Critics Circle and
Montreal World Film Festival.
Other memorable Leigh roles of this era included a jaded phone sex operator who diapers her newborn baby while plying her trade in
Robert Altman's
Academy Award-nominated film
Short Cuts (1993),
Kathy Bates' tormented, pill-popping daughter in the
Stephen King adaptation
Dolores Claiborne (1995), a streetwise kidnapper in Altman's jazz tribute
Kansas City (1996), a mousy 19th century spinster heiress courted by a gold digger in
Washington Square (1997), and a
virtual reality game designer hunted by
terrorists in
David Cronenberg's surreal
eXistenZ (1999). In 2001 she joined forces with
Scottish actor
Alan Cumming to write, direct and produce a film shot in 19 days on digital video and starring real-life Hollywood friends like
Kevin Kline,
Phoebe Cates,
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Jennifer Beals,
John C. Reilly, and
Parker Posey. The result was
The Anniversary Party, a well-received ensemble comedy in the style of
The Big Chill or
Peter's Friends. Leigh and Cumming jointly received a citation for Excellence in Filmmaking from the
National Board of Review and were nominated for two
Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay.
More recently Leigh has been cast in smaller character roles: as gangster
Tom Hanks's doomed wife in
Sam Mendes'
Road to Perdition (2002), as
Meg Ryan's brutally murdered sister in
Jane Campion's
In the Cut (2003), and as
Christian Bale's prostitute girlfriend in the thriller
The Machinist (2004) (
Mick LaSalle of the
San Francisco Chronicle commented that "As the downtrodden, sexy, trusting and quietly funny prostitute, Leigh is, of course, in her element"). Her performance as a manipulative stage mother in
Childstar won her a
Genie Award in 2005.
Also a stage actress, Leigh took on the singing, dancing lead role of Sally Bowles in the popular musical
Cabaret on
Broadway from August 4, 1998 to February 28, 1999, and succeeded
Mary-Louise Parker in the lead role in
Proof from September 13, 2001 to June 30, 2002. Other theatrical appearances include
The Glass Menagerie,
Man of Destiny,
The Shadow Box,
Picnic,
Sunshine, and
Abigail's Party.
Other work
Leigh filmed a role for
Stanley Kubrick's
Eyes Wide Shut (1999), but when Kubrick wanted to do re-shoots, she was unavailable and her entire part was redone with actress
Vinessa Shaw. In 1997, she was featured in
Faith No More's music video for "
Last Cup of Sorrow".
Leigh turned down the role of Libby, which was eventually played by
Cynthia Watros, on
ABC's popular thriller series
Lost.
She appeared in the 2008 film
Synecdoche, New York with
Catherine Keener and
Philip Seymour Hoffman.
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/]
Leigh is known for doing extensive
method acting research in every role, including keeping diaries written in the character’s voice, and in the past has interviewed psychiatrists, mental patients, drug addicts,
sexual abuse survivors, prostitutes and phone sex workers to prepare for her roles.
Leigh was willing to perform
oral sex on
Vincent Gallo in the 2004 film
The Brown Bunny, but said "it just didn't work out".
[JENNIFER JASON LEIGH - LEIGH WOULD NOT HAVE SHIED AWAY FROM BROWN BUNNY CONTROVERSY Music, Film and Entertainment News, 2007/11/19] Eventually,
Chloë Sevigny got the role.
Personal life
When Leigh was twenty years old, her father was accidentally killed when a helicopter stunt went wrong while shooting
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). Leigh and her sister filed suit against
Warner Brothers,
John Landis, and
Steven Spielberg. They
settled out of court a year later, but the terms of the settlement have never been made public. At the time of her father's death, Leigh said she had not seen her father in three years or talked to him in two, having been estranged from him after her parents' divorce.
Leigh and her boyfriend of four years,
Academy Award-nominated independent film writer-director
Noah Baumbach (
The Squid and the Whale), were married on September 3, 2005.
Baumbach directed
Margot at the Wedding which starred Leigh opposite
Nicole Kidman and
Jack Black. The couple reside in New York City and Los Angeles.
She has been best friends with her
Fast Times at Ridgemont High and
The Anniversary Party co-star
Phoebe Cates for over 25 years. Other close friends include
Mare Winningham,
Jennifer Beals,
Alan Cumming, and
John C. Reilly. Her stepfather is television director
Reza Badiyi.
According to various magazine interviews and her 1999 guest slot on the TV show
Inside the Actors Studio, Leigh is a fan of the photographer
Nan Goldin, and the musicians
Bob Dylan,
Van Morrison,
Liz Phair, and
Ella Fitzgerald.
She has been romantically linked to the actors Bruno Kirby and Eric Stoltz.
Filmography
