A professional actor since the age of nine, Miami Blues earned her Screen Actors Guild card at 16 and dropped out of high school to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute and star in seedy made-for-TV movies. Born to actor Vic Morrow and writer/actress Barbara Turner in Hollywood, CA, Jennifer picked up the middle name Jason from family friend Jason Robards Jr. Throughout her career, she has made a name for herself portraying helpless, damaged, or mentally unsound characters, often performing at a higher level than the material. Also known for extensively researching her roles, Leigh dropped down to less than 90 pounds for one of her first features as an anorexic teenager in the TV-movie The Best Little Girl in the World. Never one to shy away from touchy subject matter, her breakthrough role came in 1982 as the naïve high school girl who gets an abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. After a decade of developing a repertoire of various troubled characters, she was nominated for two Critics Circle awards in 1990 for playing prostitutes in both Miami Blues and Last Exit to Brooklyn. She would continue to play vulnerable characters in dangerous situations as the rookie narcotics officer-turned-drug addict in Rush. This was followed by her notorious role as the psycho roommate Hedra who tries to steal the identity of her roommate (Bridget Fonda) in Single White Female. She played a phone sex worker in the ensemble film Short Cuts, her first of three projects involving director Robert Altman. Leigh occasionally stepped out of her down-and-out roles, and in 1994 she shined as Amy Archer in The Hudsucker Proxy. Her comic turn as a plucky undercover journalist was said to recall the work of legendary actresses like Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck. She delivered critically acclaimed performances in her next two films, with a Golden Globe nomination for Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and an Independent Spirit nomination for Georgia. After playing an angry daughter in Dolores Claiborne, a spitfire kidnapper in Kansas City, and a domestic violence survivor in Bastard out of Carolina, she took another dramatic turn toward a period film. In Agnieszka Holland's Washington Square, Leigh proved her range by portraying a shy, clumsy girl as she evolves into adulthood. She returned to more showy roles for two films dealing with Shakespeare's King Lear: A Thousand Acres with Jason Robards Jr. and the fourth Dogme 95 film, The King Is Alive. Not limiting herself to dramas, Leigh appeared as an isolated computer programmer in David Cronenberg's thriller eXistenZ and as an over-the-top mom in the comedy Skipped Parts. Around that time, she also appeared on-stage in Broadway and off-Broadway plays, most notably as dancer Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Testing out new ground in 2001, she and fellow Cabaret star Alan Cumming wrote, directed, and starred in the ensemble comedy The Anniversary Party, a digital video project inspired by Dogme 95. Continuing to evolve as a respected actress, she went on to work in the crime genre, first as a hitman's wife in Road to Perdition, and then in Jane Campion's thriller In the Cut. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
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TV Review: Showtime's 'Weeds'Chicago Sun-Times, United StatesAnother exquisitely cast addition is Jennifer Jason Leigh as Nancy's homemaker sister Jill (or, as the family calls her, "B---- Face"). With their flat whines and lazy sexuality, how could they not be related? At the center of it all is Nancy,
Jason Patric and Jennifer Jason Leigh struggle with their HitFix, CA - Drew McWeenyIt may be hard to believe, but there was a point in the early '90s when Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Patric were two of the best actors working. One performance after another, they gave everything they had, and the results were often electrifying.
CFS: 'Washington Square'Villanovan (subscription), PAThe cast features Jennifer Jason Leigh as the charming, yet dull, Catherine Sloper. In the late 1980s and through the 1990s, Leigh was ubiquitous in Hollywood; she made the 1987 Harper's Bazaar list of the most beautiful women in the world.
Mr. Popper's Penguins and Other AdventuresGawker, NYIn that movie, Jennifer Jason Leigh was Bridget Fonda's, um, roommate. [THR] Oh awesome. The wonderful Missy Pyle, Chris Parnell, and Deanne Dunagan are set to star in a CBS comedy pilot. Parnell and Pyle have been doing funny work in TV and film for
10 Years Later: Still Missing Kubrick, Still Loving Eyes Wide ShutMovie City News, CAHarvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh shot their roles, but were then replaced by Sydney Pollack and Marie Richardson and rumors abounded as to why this was so, but mostly it was just because it took three years to shoot and edit. And then, of course,
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