Jennifer Jason Leigh

Leigh had a nonspeaking role at the age of nine for her film debut Death of a Stranger (The Execution) (1973). At the age of 14, she attended acting workshops, taught by Lee Strasberg, and the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in Loch Sheldrake, New York. Afterwards, she landed a role in the film The Young Runaways (1978). She also appeared in an episode of Baretta and an episode of The Waltons. Several television films followed, including a portrayal of an anorexic teenager in The Best Little Girl in the World, for which Leigh dropped to 86 pounds (39 kg) under medical supervision. She made her big-screen debut playing a blind, deaf, and mute rape victim in the 1981 slasher film Eyes of a Stranger; she quit school to star in the film.[4]

In 1982, Leigh played a teenager who gets pregnant in the Cameron Crowe-scripted high-school comedy film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which served as a launching pad for several of its young stars. While decrying the writing as sexist and exploitative, film critic Roger Ebert was enthusiastic about the acting, singling out Leigh and writing, "Don't they know they have a star on their hands?"[13] With the exception of Ridgemont High and a supporting role in the 1983 comedy film Easy Money alongside Rodney Dangerfield, Leigh's early film work consisted of playing fragile, damaged, or neurotic characters in low-budget horror or thriller genre films. She played a virginal princess kidnapped and raped by mercenaries in Flesh and Blood (1985), an innocent waitress pursued by the psychopathic title character in The Hitcher (1986) (both films pitting her alongside Rutger Hauer), a mentally-disturbed, child-like young woman on the threshold of sexual awakening in the Southern Gothic film Sister, Sister (1987), and a young woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Heart of Midnight (1989).

In 1990, Leigh made a significant career breakthrough when she was awarded New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress[14] and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress[15] for her portrayals of two very different prostitutes: the tough streetwalker Tralala who is brutally gang-raped in Last Exit to Brooklyn, and Susie, a teenage prostitute who falls in love with ex-con Alec Baldwin in Miami Blues. Roger Ebert included Last Exit in his list of Best Movies of 1990, calling Leigh's performance brave,[16] though his review of Miami Blues was much less sympathetic, simultaneously criticizing Leigh's ability to play dumb roles and praising her ability to play smart roles.[17] Entertainment Weekly called her "the Meryl Streep of bimbos".[18]

In his 1991 book Cult Movie Stars, Danny Peary described Leigh as "an interesting, always watchable, and extremely talented young actress," summarizing her appeal "For those who believe that the preacher's angelic-looking daughter is as interested in sex as the farmer's daughter. This pretty, sweet-looking blonde has played a number of shy and innocent-looking women who are curious about sex; once they learn, they display wicked imaginations." Peary added, "Leigh seems too gentle and looks too young and innocent to play the parts she has taken. Her females are either hungry for sex and/or have been psychologically affected by past sexual incidents... Her characters are vulnerable and almost always victimised, but usually they gave surprising resilience, and try to use their bad experiences to make themselves stronger."[19]

Leigh was cast in her first mainstream Hollywood studio film, the firefighter drama Backdraft (1991), in which she played a more conventional role, the girlfriend of lead actor William Baldwin. She found more success in the gritty crime drama Rush (1991), portraying an undercover cop who becomes a junkie and falls in love with her partner, played by Jason Patric. Reviewing Rush, Roger Ebert noted, "Leigh of course is a veteran by now of grubby characters in sleazy films; she has become one of the best young actresses by accepting roles some of her contemporaries would not even consider... After her extraordinary work as a doomed prostitute in Last Exit to Brooklyn, here she is again, looking sweet and wholesome, and descending into a world of people who have forgotten their better natures."[20] Leigh's next film, Single White Female (1992), was a surprise box-office success, bringing Leigh to her largest mainstream audience yet, portraying a mentally-ill woman who terrorizes roommate Bridget Fonda.

Leigh was awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain at the 1993 MTV Movie Awards[21] and nominated for Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. Leigh co-starred with Kathy Bates as a tormented, pill-popping woman hiding a history of childhood sexual abuse in the adaptation of Stephen King's novel Dolores Claiborne (1995). Leigh achieved her greatest acclaim in the role of Sadie Flood, an angry, drug-addicted rock singer living in the shadow of her successful older sister (Mare Winningham), in Georgia (1995). For the role, Leigh dropped to 90 pounds (41 kg) and sang all of her songs live, including a rambling 8+1⁄2-minute version of Van Morrison's "Take Me Back". Georgia was met with critical praise. James Berardinelli wrote, "There are times when it's uncomfortable to watch this performance because it's so powerful",[22] and Janet Maslin of The New York Times described Leigh's "fierce, risk-taking performance and flashes of overwhelming honesty".[23]

Leigh won New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress[24] and Best Actress from the Montreal World Film Festival,[25] as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination and Sensual Knife fight nomination[26] Some expressed surprise that she was not nominated for an Academy Award,[27][28] while Winningham was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Throughout the 1990s, Leigh worked with many independent film directors. She worked with Robert Altman in Short Cuts (1993), playing a phone-sex operator, and Kansas City (1996), as a streetwise kidnapper. Leigh has expressed admiration for Altman and called him her mentor.[3] In a change of pace from her "bad girl" roles, Leigh played the fast-talking reporter Amy Archer in the Coen Brothers' comic homage to 1950s comedy, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). Leigh took her first lead role as the writer and critic Dorothy Parker in Alan Rudolph's film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). She received a Golden Globe Award nomination and a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress,[29] as well as Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress[30] and Fort Lauderdale Film Critics Best Actress Award.

In another change of pace, she starred in Agnieszka Holland's version of the Henry James novel Washington Square (1997), as a mousy 19th-century heiress courted by a gold digger. In 1998, she appeared alongside Campbell Scott in the Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie The Love Letter. In David Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1999), she played a virtual-reality game designer who becomes lost in her own creation.

Leigh had a brief role as a gangster's doomed wife in Sam Mendes's Road to Perdition (2002) and co-starred as Meg Ryan's brutally murdered sister in Jane Campion's erotic thriller In the Cut (2003). She went on to play Stevie, the prostitute girlfriend of Christian Bale's character in the dark 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".[31] Her performance as a manipulative stage mother in Don McKellar's film Childstar won her a Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in 2005.[32]

After many years of wanting to be in a Todd Solondz film,[4] she appeared in Palindromes (2004). She also appeared in the psychological thriller The Jacket (2005), alongside Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley. Leigh appeared in the 2008 ensemble film Synecdoche, New York and has acted in two films written and directed by her then-partner Noah Baumbach: Margot at the Wedding, co-starring Nicole Kidman, and Greenberg. Leigh has said that the roles were not specifically written for her, as Baumbach does not write roles with actors in mind.[3] In 2009, Leigh was cast in the Showtime comedy-drama series Weeds,[33] becoming a regular guest in the eighth season.

Leigh has received three separate career tributes: at the Telluride Film Festival in 1993,[34] a special award for her contribution to independent cinema from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2002,[35] and a week-long retrospective of her film work held by the American Cinematheque at Los Angeles's Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in 2001.[36]

Leigh and the rest of the cast and director of The Hateful Eight at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con.

Leigh joined the drama series Revenge on ABC in 2012.[37] In 2015, Leigh starred in Quentin Tarantino's western film The Hateful Eight. It is set in Wyoming after the Civil War, and was released on December 25. Leigh, along with the rest of the cast, appeared at the San Diego Comic-Con to promote the film in July 2015.[38] Leigh's performance has received multiple award nominations at various award ceremonies, including her third Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture,[39][40] her first BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role[41] and her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.[42] In 2017, Leigh was reunited with her Hateful Eight co-star Tim Roth when the pair played a husband-and-wife team of contract killers in six episodes of Showtime's revival of David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks. In 2019, Leigh appeared in two episodes of Showtime's last season of The Affair.

In 1998, Leigh took on the lead role of Sally Bowles in Sam Mendes's Broadway revival of the musical Cabaret, succeeding Natasha Richardson, who originated the role in Mendes's production.[43] She succeeded Mary-Louise Parker in the lead role in Proof on Broadway in 2001.[44] Her other theatrical appearances include The Glass Menagerie, Man of Destiny, The Shadow Box, Picnic, Sunshine and Abigail's Party. In 2011, she played Bunny in the Broadway revival of House of Blue Leaves in New York City alongside Ben Stiller and Edie Falco.[45]

In 2001, Leigh co-wrote and co-directed The Anniversary Party, an independently produced feature film about a recently reconciled married couple who assemble their friends at their Hollywood Hills house, ostensibly to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. As the evening progresses, the party disintegrates into emotional confrontations and bitter arguments as the façade of their happy marriage crumbles. Leigh was inspired by her recent experience filming the low-budget Dogme 95 film The King Is Alive.[46] Leigh and co-writer Alan Cumming drew freely from their personal experiences in the writing of the film.[46] Leigh plays an aging actress who makes jokes about her lack of Academy Award nominations and is fearful of losing her bisexual husband (Cumming). The film was shot in 19 days on digital video,[3] and costarred the pair's real-life Hollywood friends,[46] including Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Beals, John C. Reilly, Parker Posey, and Leigh's sister Mina Badie. Leigh and Cumming jointly received a citation for Excellence in Filmmaking from the National Board of Review,[47] and were nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. The movie received generally positive reviews.[48]