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Jesse Plemons
American actor (born 1988) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jesse Plemons (/ˈplɛmənz/; born April 2, 1988)[1][2][3] is an American actor. His accolades include nominations for an Academy Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a British Academy Film Award.
Plemons began his career as a child actor and had his breakthrough role as Landry Clarke in the NBC drama series Friday Night Lights (2006–2011). He subsequently portrayed Todd Alquist in the fifth and final season of the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad (2012–2013) and its sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). He received Emmy nominations for his roles as Ed Blumquist in the second season of the FX anthology series Fargo (2015), the Netflix anthology series Black Mirror (2017–2025), and the HBO Max miniseries Love & Death (2023).
Plemons received further recognition with supporting roles in the films Paul (2011), The Master (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), Game Night (2018), The Irishman (2019), Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). He played lead roles in Other People (2016), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020), Windfall (2022), and Bugonia (2025). For playing a rancher in The Power of the Dog (2021), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and for playing three roles in the anthology film Kinds of Kindness (2024), he received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and his first Golden Globe nomination.
Plemons is known for being typecast as quiet and unnerving characters in his most prominent roles, such as Breaking Bad, Black Mirror and Kinds of Kindness.[4] His acting style is characterized by his Texan accent, cowboy-inspired persona, and dramatic pauses in his speech.[5][6]
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Early life
Plemons was born in Dallas,[7] and raised in Mart, Texas, a small town 21 miles (33.7 km) east of Waco.[3] He is the younger of two children to Jim Bob, a firefighter and amateur rodeo competitor, and Lisa (Cason) Plemons, a special education trainer.[8][9][10]
In 2007, Plemons graduated from the Texas Tech University Independent School District, a distance learning program, which allowed him to earn his high school diploma.[11] He attended schools in Mart, playing football in middle school, junior high, and at Mart High School, until he received more acting jobs and shifted to the online program.[12]
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Career
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1991–2006: Early career
Plemons got his start in a Coca-Cola commercial at age 3. When he was 8, he started doing extra work, and, with the support of his family, spent time auditioning in Los Angeles and landing small jobs.[13] After appearing in the films Varsity Blues (1999) and All the Pretty Horses (2000), and guest-starring on Walker, Texas Ranger and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Plemons' first prominent role was in the film Children on their Birthdays (2002).[14] He later appeared in Like Mike (2002) and When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (2003), with guest roles on the television series Judging Amy, The Lyon's Den, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Grey's Anatomy between 2003 and 2006.[14]
2006–2011: Breakthrough with Friday Night Lights
In 2006, when he was 18, Plemons joined the ensemble cast of NBC's television series Friday Night Lights, filmed in Austin, Texas, detailing the fictional events surrounding a high school football team in fictional Dillon, Texas. In the show's first season, his character Landry Clarke provided comic relief as the best friend of football quarterback Matt Saracen, though Landry himself was not on the team.[15] Among the cast and crew, the joke was that Plemons played football better than most of the other actors, even though his character was one of the few who did not play.[15]
Landry joined the Panthers football team in the second season, and Plemons, having played high school football, told director Jeffrey Reiner that he would do his own stunts.[16] In his first football scene, Landry had to "get the crap beat out of [him] over and over and over again".[16] When hit by co-star Taylor Kitsch (playing Tim Riggins) Plemons' chin split open, requiring eleven stitches.[16] The show, a fan and critic favorite, ended after five seasons after shifting to DirecTV in 2011.[17]
In 2012, Plemons reunited with Kitsch and Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg in the film Battleship.[18] Berg, who directed the film, explained that he knew how comfortable Kitsch was with Plemons: "I know that he's really good for Taylor and he makes Taylor better. So, I wrote that whole part for Jesse. I never thought of it as a Friday Night Lights reunion. I thought of it as protection, bringing a trusted family member in."[19]
2011–2019: Character work
From 2012 to 2013, Plemons portrayed Todd Alquist[20] during the final season of the AMC drama series Breaking Bad.[21][22] He was a recurring cast member in Season 5A and was promoted to series regular for Season 5B.[23][24] Fans of Breaking Bad nicknamed him "Meth Damon", due to Plemons' resemblance to actor Matt Damon.[25][12][13][26] One of his first film roles, at age 12, was playing the younger version of Damon's character in the film All the Pretty Horses (2000).
In 2012, Plemons also had a supporting role in the Paul Thomas Anderson drama The Master as the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, an actor to whom his physical appearance has been compared. In January 2014, Plemons was in consideration to be one of the new stars of Star Wars Episode VII (Star Wars: The Force Awakens).[27][28] In March 2014, Plemons, along with four other actors, were being considered for the lead role of Finn in Episode VII.[29] The role, however, went to British actor John Boyega. Plemons played mobster Kevin Weeks in the Boston-set mob film Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp, which opened in theaters in September 2015. Also that year, he appeared in the Stephen Frears film about Lance Armstrong, The Program, and the Steven Spielberg film Bridge of Spies.
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In late-2015, Plemons co-starred in the second season of the TV show Fargo.[3] He portrayed Ed Blumquist, a butcher and the husband of Peggy Blumquist (Kirsten Dunst).[30] For his performance, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.[31] In 2016, Plemons starred in the film Other People. In 2017, he appeared in the Doug Liman thriller film American Made, the Scott Cooper western Hostiles, and Steven Spielberg's historical drama The Post.
In December 2017, Plemons appeared in "USS Callister", an episode in the fourth series of the anthology show Black Mirror. Plemons played Robert Daly, the episode's main character and a sadistic introvert, and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2018, Plemons had supporting roles in two films, the comedy Game Night and Adam McKay's Dick Cheney biopic Vice, which he narrated. In 2019 he had a supporting role in the Martin Scorsese crime drama The Irishman, which premiered at the New York Film Festival on September 27, 2019. He also reprised his role as Todd Alquist in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.
2020–present: Career expansion
In 2020, Plemons received critical praise and a Gotham Independent Film Award nomination for Best Actor for his lead performance in Charlie Kaufman's psychological drama I'm Thinking of Ending Things.[32] In 2021, Plemons gave supporting performances in Judas and the Black Messiah, a film about civil rights activist Fred Hampton[33][34] and the Disney adventure film Jungle Cruise.[35] In the same year, Plemons starred in the supernatural horror film Antlers, again collaborating with director Scott Cooper,[36] and starred once again alongside his real life partner and Fargo co-star Kirsten Dunst in Jane Campion's western drama The Power of the Dog,[37] for which he has received praise and a number of accolades, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2022, Plemons starred in Charlie McDowell's noir thriller Windfall, which also marked his first credit as a producer.[38] It was about this time Plemons noted that the number of people referring to him by his nickname "Meth Damon" had started to decline.[39]
In 2023, Plemons starred alongside Elizabeth Olsen in the HBO Max true crime series Love & Death[40] and reunited with Martin Scorsese for a supporting role in his western-thriller Killers of the Flower Moon, which he starred in alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro.[41] The film premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. In September 2022, Plemons was announced to be starring alongside Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley in Yorgos Lanthimos's film Kinds of Kindness,[42] which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where Plemons won the Best Actor award.[43]
In 2025, Plemons played a supporting role in the Robert De Niro-led Netflix political thriller series Zero Day, which reunited him with Love and Death director Lesli Linka Glatter,[44] and a leading role in Lanthimos' black comedy Bugonia.[45] His performance in the latter received critical acclaim.[46][47][48] He also reprised his role as Robert Daly in the seventh series of Black Mirror, in the episode "USS Callister: Into Infinity". In 2026, Plemons will play Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping.[49]
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Personal life
Plemons has been married to fellow actor Kirsten Dunst since 2022. He began a relationship with his Fargo co-star in March 2016,[50] and the two got engaged a year later.[51] The couple welcomed their first son, Ennis Howard, born in May 2018[52] and their second son, James Robert, born in May 2021.[53] In February 2022, Plemons and Dunst were both nominated for Academy Awards for their roles in The Power of the Dog.[54] They were officially married in July of that year.[55]
Health
In 2015, Plemons deliberately gained 45 pounds (20 kg) to portray Kevin Weeks in Black Mass.[56] In 2024, he announced he had lost over 50 pounds (23 kg) through intermittent fasting and a diet focused on whole foods, and later expressed regret for his deliberate weight gain.[56][57] He denied the use of Ozempic to further his weight loss.[58][59]
Filmography
| † | Denotes film or TV productions that have not yet been released |
Film
Television
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Accolades
References
External links
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