Best Known As: Star of Jurassic Park and Blue Velvet
Laura Dern is a lanky blonde leading lady of the big screen, best known for her roles in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) and Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993). Her parents are actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, and she grew up in Los Angeles and New York surrounded by bohemian actors and filmmakers. As a child she made a few brief appearances in her mom's movies, including Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974, starring Ellen Burstyn), then studied acting into her teens. She played earnest and innocent in her early roles, including Smooth Talk (1985) and Blue Velvet, and then proved she could play nutty and reckless in Lynch's Wild At Heart (1990, with Nicolas Cage) and the sort-of comedy Citizen Ruth (1996, with Tippi Hedren). An Oscar nominee for Rambling Rose (1991), Dern has also had supporting roles in films like October Sky (1999, with Jake Gyllenhaal) and I Am Sam (2001, starring Sean Penn). Despite her big-budget Jurassic Park roles (she was also in Jurassic Park III), Dern has a reputation as a risk-taker, thanks in no small part to her collaborations with Lynch in films like the 2006 feature Inland Empire.
Dern is 5'10" tall, according to a 1990 story in The Village Voice... She married musician Ben Harper in 2005... Dern and Diane Ladd played daughter and mother in Wild At Heart.
Career Highlights: Rambling Rose, Smooth Talk, Citizen Ruth
First Major Screen Credit: Smooth Talk (1985)
Biography
Playing characters ranging from wide-eyed virgins to willful sirens to drug-addicted losers, Laura Dern is among the screen's most interesting modern actresses. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and slender, Dern moves with a coltish combination of grace and gangliness that she uses to make herself alternately plain or beautiful, innocent or seductive, as her roles require. Her parents, Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, are both successful actors but initially discouraged her from becoming involved in the profession. Still, acting was Dern's childhood goal, and after her parents divorced, she made her film debut at the age of six in White Lightning (1973).
The following year, Dern played a bit part in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. She got her first major role in 1980, playing a teenager in Adrian Lyne's Foxes. By 1983, she had appeared in more films, and in defiance of her parents' wishes, decided to get some formal dramatic training at the Lee Strasberg Institute, where she studied Method acting. She went on to appear in films such as Teachers (1984) and Mask (1985) and gained a reputation for realistic portrayals of goodhearted innocents. Dern could have easily been typecast into such roles had Joyce Chopra not cast her as a rebellious teen anxious to experience a sexual awakening in Smooth Talk (1986). The young actress' portrayal earned her a New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics. That same year, Dern became an even more marketable actress when she played a fresh-faced young sleuth in David Lynch's disturbing, groundbreaking Blue Velvet. She again worked with Lynch in the flamboyantly bizarre Wild at Heart (1990), in which she played an oversexed 20-year-old on the run with her lover (Nicholas Cage). The film proved to be a family affair, as Ladd played her villainous mother. The two appeared together again the following year in the beautifully wrought Rambling Rose. Dern's naturalistic performance as a troubled 19-year-old who wants love, but has confused it with sex, won her considerable acclaim that culminated in an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Ladd was also nominated, making it the first time a mother-daughter team had been so honored in the same year.
In 1993, Dern became a bigger star portraying a courageous paleo-botanist in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Jurassic Park. Three years later, she played one of her most offbeat roles as a paint-huffing, spiteful, pregnant, and dumb as a box-of-doorknobs homeless girl who finds herself caught in the middle of a battle royale between pro- and anti-abortion groups in the black comedy Citizen Ruth. In 1999, she took on two very diverse roles, first playing a supportive high school teacher in October Sky and then returning to the realm of eccentricity -- and to sharing the screen with her mother -- as part of an unconventional Alabama family in Billy Bob Thornton's Daddy and Them. Though audiences were no doubt eager to see what Slingblade director Thornton had up his sleeve for the eagerly anticipated feature, Daddy and Them did recieve stateside release into a full two-years after production wrapped - and when it finally did find it's way into theaters critical and popular response was lukewarm at best. The disappointment was more than counterbalanced that year however when Dern and boyfriend Ben Harper gave birth to their first baby boy Ellery, and in addition to also returning to the land of dinosaurs with Jurassic Park III in 2001Dern essayed memorable supporting performances in a number of films including Novcaine, Focus and I Am Sam. Stepping back into the lead for her role as true life HMO whistle-blower Linda Peeno in the made-for-HBO film Damaged Goods, many found Dern's performance so moving that whispers of an Emmy nomination began to circulate. That wasn't in the cards however, and the following year Dern returned to feature work with the adulterous drama We Don't Live Here Anymore.
In addition to her film career, Dern has appeared on stage and television. In 1992, she won an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for performing in the HBO docudrama Afterburn. In 1997, she again proved her versatility by offering a convincing, Emmy-nominated portrayal of a lesbian who is comfortable with her sexuality in a landmark episode of the sitcom Ellen in which star Ellen DeGeneres "comes out of the closet." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
In the mid-1980s she gained critical acclaim for roles in films by Peter Bogdanovich (Mask) and David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart). Dern's starring role in Blue Velvet appeared to be a breakthrough but her next notable film took almost four years to be released, Wild at Heart, also directed by Lynch. Dern's affiliation with Lynch has continued with her recent role in Inland Empire.
In 1992, Dern and her mother became the first mother and daughter to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in the same film in Rambling Rose. They, however, did not play mother and daughter in the film.
She also starred as Ruth in the 1996 satireCitizen Ruth, the directorial debut of Alexander Payne. In a reversal of roles, Dern's mother makes a cameo appearance, with Dern's character screaming a torrent of abuse at her.
In 1997, Dern was featured in Widespread Panic's music video for their song, "Aunt Avis", which was directed by Dern's then boyfriend and future fiancé, Billy Bob Thornton. In 1998, Dern and Stockard Channing co-starred in the Showtime film The Baby Dance. The film, produced by Jodie Foster, followed two couples from different backgrounds through a difficult adoption.
Then came 2001, a busy year for Dern as she took on five films. The first was a TV movie with Ellen Burstyn called Within These Walls. Based on a true story, Dern played a nun who taught female inmates to train dogs for people with special needs. She co-starred with William H. Macy in Focus based on Arthur Miller's novel. Next she co-starred with Steve Martin and Helena Bonham Carter in the dark comedy Novocaine. She also had a minor role in Jurassic Park III. The film I Am Sam with Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer featured Dern in a supporting role.
In an interview, Dern stated that she would reprise her role as Ellie Sattler for Jurassic Park IV.
Dern has done much work on television, most notably Afterburn, for which she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Movie. She guest-starred on The West Wing, as a voice on King of the Hill and as a lesbian who coaxes Ellen DeGeneres out of the closet in the famous "The Puppy Episode" of the television series Ellen. On the April 24, 2007 airing of DeGeneres' talk show, Dern revealed she did not work for more than a year following her appearance in that episode because of resulting backlash, but nevertheless called it an "extraordinary experience and opportunity."[1]
Next up for Dern is the suspense/thriller Tenderness(working title), with Russell Crowe, slated for release in September 2009.[2]
Politics and personal life
Dern is known as an outspoken activist and supporter of many charitable causes, such as Healthy Child Healthy World, which aims to raise awareness about toxic substances that can affect a child's health. She has been acknowledged with several awards from the independent film industry including the Sundance Institute and was the subject of an aggressive media campaign by David Lynch to win her an Academy Award nomination for her work in Inland Empire.
