LAURA DERN

Georgia Davis

6 years ago

You know this talented actress now from her roles in prestige TV shows Big Little Lies and the Twin Peaks revival, her Oscar-nominated performance as Scarlett Johansson’s shrewd divorce lawyer in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, and as matron of the March family in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women&period; What you may not know about Laura Dern, she didn’t always play lawyers and moms, she got her start as a bit of a sex symbol&period;&NewLine;Born Laura Elizabeth Dern to actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, Dern started acting in the 1980s&period; Her first leading role was as Connie in the 1985 movie, Smooth Talk&period; The movie was based on Joyce Carol Oates’ disturbing short story &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been&period;” The plot revolves around 15-year-old Connie who finds herself in danger after she meets the mysterious Arnold Friend (Treat Williams)&period; For her role, Dern was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award&period;&NewLine;Her breakthrough role came the next year in the form of David Lynch’s 1986 psychosexual, neo-noir Blue Velvet&period; She played Sandy Williams, the love interest to Kyle Machlachlan’s Jeffrey Beaumont, and the foil to Isabella Rossellini’s darkly sexual Dorothy Vallens&period; This movie led to a longtime collaboration between Dern and Lynch which continues to this day&period; After Blue Velvet, Lynch cast Dern as the lead in his Wizard of Oz-inspired 1990 movie, Wild at Heart&period; She played Lula, opposite Nicolas Cage’s Sailor Ripley, two young lovers on the run from Lula’s disapproving mother, played by her real-life mother Diane Ladd&period; Her role as the wildly sexual Lula in Wild at Heart marked a distinct change from the more demure Sandy in Blue Velvet&period; Watch one of our favorite Laura Dern videos above, featuring a scene from Wild At Heart&period;&NewLine;Her first Oscar nomination came in 1992 for her leading role as Rose in the 1991 film, Rambling Rose&period; The movie was written by Calder Willingham who adapted the script from his own book of the same name&period; Set in the 1930s, It follows a young woman named Rose who is hired by the Hillyer family to work as their housemaid, in order to avoid a life of prostitution, she takes on the job&period; However, Rose is a promiscuous woman and turns men&&num;8217&semi;s heads wherever she goes, something she knows and takes advantage of&period;&NewLine;Of course no discussion of Laura Dern would be complete without mentioning her importance to the LGBT community&period; In 1997 she guest starred on &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The Puppy Episode” of the sitcom Ellen&period; Dern played Susan, a lesbian, to whom the titular Ellen finds herself storngly attracted, which leads to her coming out as gay&period; The episode made history for being the first sitcom to have a leading character who was gay&period;&NewLine;And yes, Dern also starred in Steven Spielberg’s epic Sci-fi movie, Jurassic Park&period; And she will reprise her role in the upcoming Jurassic World 3&period;&NewLine;