Latest News: Jesse Plemons Wins Top Acting Award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Actor Jesse Plemons is getting all kinds of praise for his new movie Kinds of Kindness. Plemons, 36, received the coveted best actor award at the 77^th Cannes Film Festival earlier this month for his performance in the film, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and also starring Oscar winner Emma Stone. The actor plays three separate characters—Robert, Daniel, and Andrew—in the anthology compilation, which releases in theaters on June 21.

The former Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights actor praised the camaraderie among the film’s cast, comparing the group to a “weird family theater troupe” in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Trust is always such a big part of what we do—to be willing to take risks. This was such a unique group of crazy-talented people, and it felt like everyone had each other’s backs,” Plemons said.

[table-of-contents] ᵴtriƥped

Who Is Jesse Plemons?

Academy Award nominee Jesse Plemons has had standout performances the hit TV shows Friday Night Lights and Breaking Badas as well as the 2021 movie The Power of the Dog. His breakout portrayal of Landry Clarke on the popular football drama Friday Night Lights as a teenager was a sharp contrast to his next major TV role as remorseless criminal Todd Alquist on Breaking Bad. More recently, he has landed prominent supporting roles in movies such as the Martin Scorsese crime dramas The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon, the period Western The Power of the Dog that earned him an Oscar nomination, and Civil War. Plemons is married to actor Kirsten Dunst, his former Fargo co-star.

Young Jesse Plemons

Jesse Lon Plemons was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 on April 2, 1988, in Dallas. His father, Jim Bob, is a retired firefighter, while his mother, Lisa, works as a trainer in special education. Plemons also has an older sister, Jill.

He grew up in Mart, Texas, a quaint town just outside of Waco. As a young 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥, he enjoyed watching Westerns, like the 1989 TV miniseries Lonesome Dove starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, and carried a rope and toy pistol everywhere he went. This helped him land his first role at age 3, playing a young cowboy in a commercial for Coca-Cola. Plemons also competed in the Central Texas Youth Rodeo Association starting around age 6.

When he reached double digits, Plemons began splitting time between Mart and Los Angeles to accommodate his expanding acting career. “I was in my wonderful little town, which has horses, one stop light, and 2,000 people, then I’d be in LA for five or six months a year,” he told The Guardian. “It wasn’t possible for me to get ahead of myself or think I was better than anyone else.”

While in Texas, Plemons attended Mart High School and also showed promise as an athlete. He played quarterback and tight end in football and pitched on the baseball team. However, he eventually gave up both sports to focus on acting.

TV Shows: Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights, and More

Plemons began his acting career in earnest before even reaching his teenage years. His first small screen role was on an episode of the Chuck Norris–led Walker, Texas Ranger in 2000. Over the next handful of years, he earned one-episode parts on a variety of popular TV series, including Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Judging Amy, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Grey’s Anatomy.

Breakthrough on Friday Night Lights

Plemons drew on his athletic experience for his first reoccurring role on Friday Night Lights, the NBC drama about a Texas high school football team. He played Landry Clarke, the best friend of Dillon High School quarterback Matt Saracen.

The young actor was 18 years old and looking for apartments in Los Angeles when he booked the role, leading Plemons to start crying outside his then-girlfriend’s dance class. “It was the most exciting moment of my life,” he told The New York Times. He appeared in 65 episodes of the show, which ran from 2006 through 2011. Critics praised Friday Night Lights for its realistic portrayal of the U.S. heartland, and the show earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series in its final season.

“Immediately after Friday Night Lights, all I was presented with were different takes on the same sort of thing,” Plemons said years later. “But if you wait long enough, something different comes along.” That something was an even bigger TV hit.

Breaking Bad’s Todd Alquist

In a complete shift from Friday Night Lights, Plemons portrayed calculating, remorseless criminal Todd Alquist in Season 5 of the AMC drama Breaking Bad. The acclaimed series, about a terminally ill chemistry teacher who becomes a methamphetamine dealer, won 16 Emmys over the course of its run and was one of the most-watched episodic shows on television by Plemons’ 2012 arrival.

Plemons described his character as “an ambush predator; he seems really, really harmless, and I think that’s the scariest part.” Despite the character’s nefarious actions, Plemons also received the humorous nickname “Meth Damon” from fans due to the show’s subject matter and his resemblance to actor Matt Damon.

The drama drew wide acclaim in its final season, with Plemons earning a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the ensemble cast in 2014. The actor reprised the role for the 2019 spinoff El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.

Fargo and More

Plemons garnered more recognition for Season 2 of the FX crime drama Fargo in 2015, portraying butcher’s assistant Ed Blumquist alongside his onscreen wife, Peggy Blumquist, played by his future real-life partner Kirsten Dunst. The performance earned Plemons his first of three Emmy nominations, this time for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

Although Plemons has focused primarily on his movie career in recent years, his recent TV roles have been well received. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2018 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his appearance on the “USS Callister” episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror. Then in 2023, he played Allan Gore in Love & Death, the popular Max true crime miniseries about acquitted murderer Candy Montgomery (played by Elizabeth Olsen).

Movies: Like Mike, The Irishman, and The Power of the Dog

Plemons’ first major film project was Varsity Blues, the 1999 sports drama about a Texas high school football team. He played Tommy, the younger brother of West Canaan star quarterback Lance Harbor (Paul Walker). Plemons also appeared in All the Pretty Horses, a 2000 movie adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name starring Matt Damon.

By the time he reached his teenage years, Plemons began regularly appearing in small-scale movies and was often cast as a bully or antagonistic character. Some of these roles included Ox in the sports comedy Like Mike (2002), Jay in When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (2003), and the on-the-nose “Bully No. 1” in The Flyboys (2008).

Plemons also appeared in the comedies Observe and Report (2009) and Paul (2011), with Seth Rogen, before playing Navy Seaman Jimmy Ord in 2012’s Battleship, his first big-budget blockbuster. Based on the Hasbro board game, the movie (costing a reported $209 million) didn’t achieve financial success despite a star-studded cast including Liam Neeson and Rihanna. However, it proved Plemons’ versatility across different film genres.

The actor soon garnered more dramatic roles alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest actors. They included Johnny Depp in the 2015 movie Black Mass about gangster Whitey Bulger, as well as Tom Hanks in the Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies (2015) and Meryl Streep in the journalism drama The Post (2017). Plemons also had roles in the Oscar-nominated movies Vice (2018) and The Irishman (2019), as well as the Netflix film I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020).

Oscar Nomination for The Power of the Dog

Now a well-established Hollywood star, Plemons starred in four major movies in 2021, including the Disney fantasy adventure Jungle Cruise, the creature horror Antlers, and the biographical drama Judas and the Black Messiah about Black Panther Party member Fred Hampton. However, he received the most acclaim for playing George Burbank in the 2021 western drama The Power of the Dog.

The movie, about two Montana brothers and ranch owners in the 1920s who are played by Plemons and Benedict Cumberbatch, received 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actor for Plemons and Best Supporting Actress for his onscreen wife and real-life partner Kirsten Dunst. “There wasn’t much about this that wasn’t exciting,” Plemons told The A.V. Club. “The script was one of the best scripts I’ve read in I don’t know how long. Obviously, getting to work with [director] Jane [Campion] is a crazy, exciting opportunity.”

More recently, Plemons played investigator Tom White in the Martin Scorsese crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) and had a memorable cameo appearance as a militiaman in the 2024 thriller Civil War. He also stars in the upcoming anthology movie Kinds of Kindness, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and set to release on June 21, 2024.

Wife Kirsten Dunst and Children

Plemons began dating fellow actor Kirsten Dunst, whom he met on the set of Fargo, in March 2016. Dunst confirmed their engagement a little over a year later in June 2017, and the couple eventually married in July 2022.

Plemons told Extra in November 2021 that Dunst is his favorite actor to work with. “When you’re not working with your partner, you’re trying to explain what it’s like and you can never really paint the picture as well as experiencing it,” he said. “There’s an easy element to it that just makes it more fun.” In addition to Fargo, the two collaborated for the movies The Power of the Dog and Civil War.

Prior to their wedding, Plemons and Dunst welcomed two sons: Ennis, 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in May 2018, and James, 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in April 2021. The family now splits time between California and Plemons’ home state of Texas.

Plemons introduced Dunst during her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in August 2019, and the couple have frequently appeared together at events and award ceremonies, most recently the 2024 Academy Awards in March.

Weight Loss

Plemons sported a noticeably slimmer frame upon his arrival with Dunst at the 2024 Oscars, leaving fans curious about his apparent weight loss. In a December 2022 conversation for Interview magazine, the actor said he decided to shed a few pounds for a movie role in which he plays a soldier, likely referring to his cameo in Civil War.

To trim down, he began intermittent fasting and cut carbs from his diet. “It’s easy if you just actually do it,” he said. “I feel better. Blood pressure’s down. I got two kids, and they’re getting to the point where I have to keep up with them.”

Plemons’ weight has fluctuated in the past based on his acting work. For example, he gained 45 pounds for Black Mass in 2015.