40 interesting facts about Jennifer Jason Leigh! (List)

Read them here: 1. Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh was born Jennifer Leigh Morrow on February 5, 1962, in Los Angeles, California.

2. She is the daughter of actor Vic Morrow and screenwriter Barbara Turner.

3. She had her first movie role at the age of nine, appearing in a nonspeaking role in 1973’s Death of a Stranger.

4. At an early age, Leigh became interested in acting.

5. Her other film credits include The Hudsucker Proxy, Short Cuts and The Hitcher.

6. Her role as Pauline in the 2007 film Margot at the Wedding earned her numerous award nominations for best supporting actress.

7. She studied with famed acting coach Lee Strasberg before beginning her professional career. Early on, Leigh landed a number of television guest spots on such shows as Family and Baretta in the 1970s.

8. She and Phoebe Cates played best friends Stacy and Linda in 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

9. Moving on to more substantial roles in the 1980s, Leigh starred as an anorexic teenager in the 1981 television movie The Best Little Girl in the World.

10. She also appeared in the seminal teen flick Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates and Forest Whitaker the following year. Around this time, Leigh received terrible news. In July 1982, her father was killed in a helicopter accident while filming Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

11. She earned great reviews for her work in the urban drama Last Exit to Brooklyn (1990), based on the book by Hubert Selby Jr.

12. She married Noah Baumbach in 2005 and the couple had a son in March of 2010. They divorced later that year.

13. One of Leigh’s most well-known roles was the deeply disturbed roommate in Single White Female (1992), with Bridget Fonda.

14. She was also part of the stellar ensemble cast for Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), which also included Julianne Moore and Tim Robbins.

15. Tackling a literary legend, Leigh earned positive reviews for her portrayal of writer Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994).

16. Leigh also received many positive reviews for her work in the Stephen King mystery Dolores Claiborne (1995) starring Kathy Bates.

17. That same year, she starred opposite Mare Winningham in the sister drama Georgia (1995).

18. In 1998, Leigh made her Broadway debut in a revival of Cabaret with Alan Cumming. She took over the part of Sally Bowles from Natasha Richardson. With Cumming,

19. Leigh also co-wrote and directed the 2001 dramatic comedy The Anniversary Party. That same year, Leigh returned to Broadway to join the cast of Proof, replacing Mary-Louise Parker in the lead role.

20. Leigh has enjoyed some success on the small screen as of late. She had a recurring role on the dramatic comedy Weeds.

21. In 2012, Leigh joined the cast of the popular primetime drama Revenge starring Emily VanCamp.

22. In 2015, she garnered a Golden Globe nomination for her turn as Daisy “The Prisoner” Domergue in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, followed by an Oscar nod, her first.

23. Her parents divorced when she was two.

24. Leigh’s birth name was Jennifer Leigh Morrow.

25. She changed her surname early in her acting career, taking the middle name “Jason” in honor of actor Jason Robards, a family friend.

26. Leigh’s parents were Jewish.

27.  Leigh has an older sister, Carrie Ann Morrow, who was credited as a “technical advisor” on her 1995 film Georgia.

28. Leigh worked in her first film at the age of nine, in a nonspeaking role for the film Death of a Stranger (The Execution).

29. Jennifer Jason Leigh has appeared in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Easy Money, Flesh + Blood, The Hitcher, The Hudsucker Proxy, Single White Female, Dolores Claiborne, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts.

30. Her half-sister, actress Mina Badie acted alongside Leigh in The Anniversary Party. The director Reza Badiyi was her mother’s second husband and was at the time her stepfather.

31. Leigh also has a half-sister, actress Mina Badie, from her mother’s marriage.

32. Beginning her career in the early 1970s, Leigh has developed a reputation for playing characters on society’s bottom rung, often prostitutes or drug users, which have garnered her three Golden Globe nominations and much critical acclaim throughout her career.

33. She is also the co-writer and co-director of the film The Anniversary Party, made with fellow actor Alan Cumming.

34. Roger Ebert included Last Exit in his list of Best Movies of 1990, calling Leigh’s performance brave, 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.

35. Leigh was cast in her first mainstream Hollywood studio film, the firefighter drama Backdraft, in which she played a more conventional role, the girlfriend of lead actor William Baldwin.

36. For the role of Sadie Flood Leigh dropped to 90 pounds (41 kg) and sang all her songs live, including a rambling 8½-minute version of Van Morrison’s “Take Me Back”. Georgia was met with critical praise.

37. 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.

38. Leigh was awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and nominated for Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress.

39. Leigh has expressed admiration for Altman and called him her mentor.

40. Leigh took her first lead role as the writer and critic Dorothy Parker in Alan Rudolph’s film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. She received a Golden Globe Award nomination and a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, as well as Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and Fort Lauderdale Film Critics Best Actress Award.