50 Fun Facts About Jennifer Jason Leigh

In which thriller does Jennifer Jason Leigh play Hedy, a roommate who terrorizes Bridget Fonda's character?

Single White Female won Leigh the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain, after her character copied her roommate's haircut and wardrobe.

Which antique instrument was accidentally destroyed during Jennifer Jason Leigh's scene in The Hateful Eight?

A guitar made in the 1870s, on loan from the Martin museum, was smashed by a co-star who was never told to swap it for a copy. Leigh's shock on screen is real.

Jennifer Jason Leigh's scenes were cut from which Stanley Kubrick film after she was unavailable for reshoots?

Eyes Wide Shut lost Leigh's turn as Marion, the grieving daughter of a dead patient, when she was busy on another film, so Marie Richardson replaced her.

Actress Jennifer Leigh Morrow took the middle name of her screen name to honor which family friend?

Jason Robards, a two-time Oscar winner and a friend of her parents, gave Leigh the name she adopted when she dropped Morrow early in her career.

Jennifer Jason Leigh made her Broadway debut in 1998 as nightclub singer Sally Bowles in which musical?

Cabaret was playing in Sam Mendes's revival when Leigh took over Sally Bowles from Natasha Richardson, who originated the role in that production.

Which actress plays Linda, best friend of Jennifer Jason Leigh's Stacy, in Fast Times at Ridgemont High?

Phoebe Cates later came out of retirement as a favor to Leigh, acting in The Anniversary Party, the film Leigh co-directed.

Which actor plays John Ruth, the bounty hunter handcuffed to Jennifer Jason Leigh's fugitive in The Hateful Eight?

Kurt Russell's John Ruth is nicknamed the Hangman because he always delivers his bounties alive to the gallows, which is why Daisy Domergue is chained to his wrist.

Which director cast Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight and had her narrate the audiobook of his novel?

Quentin Tarantino first met Jennifer Lawrence about the part of Daisy Domergue, but she declined, and Leigh went on to her first Oscar nomination.

Which Stephen King adaptation casts Jennifer Jason Leigh as the estranged daughter of Kathy Bates's housekeeper?

Dolores Claiborne has Leigh play Selena, a New York journalist who comes home to a Maine island when her mother is accused of murder.

Jennifer Jason Leigh's father, actor Vic Morrow, died in a helicopter accident on the set of which film?

Twilight Zone: The Movie was shooting a night scene in 1982 when the crash killed Morrow and two child actors, a tragedy that brought new safety standards to American film sets.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays an alderman's aide who dates William Baldwin's character in which Ron Howard film?

Backdraft has her character rekindle a romance with a Chicago firefighter while her boss backs budget cuts to the fire department.

In which Sam Mendes crime drama does Jennifer Jason Leigh play Annie, wife of Tom Hanks's mob enforcer?

Road to Perdition gives Leigh only a brief part: Annie and her younger son are murdered early, which sends the father and his surviving boy on the run.

In which Alex Garland film does Jennifer Jason Leigh's Dr. Ventress lead scientists into the Shimmer?

Annihilation sends Leigh's psychologist and Natalie Portman's biologist into a quarantined area of mutating plants and animals where earlier expeditions vanished.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Stevie, who comforts Christian Bale's emaciated insomniac, in which thriller?

The Machinist drew attention because Bale lost 62 pounds to play Trevor Reznik, a loner who has been unable to sleep for an entire year.

Which stop-motion Charlie Kaufman film has Jennifer Jason Leigh voice the one person its hero hears as unique?

Anomalisa has every other character voiced by Tom Noonan, so Leigh's Lisa, whom he meets in a Cincinnati hotel, is the only one who sounds different to the hero.

In which Netflix series does Jennifer Jason Leigh play Elsa, overprotective mother of an autistic teenager?

Atypical was first known as Antarctica, the special interest of Sam, the penguin-loving 18-year-old at the center of the story.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Lorraine Lyon, billionaire boss of a debt collection agency, in which FX series?

Fargo's fifth season nicknames Lorraine the Queen of Debt and makes her the wealthy, arrogant mother-in-law of Juno Temple's Dot.

Jennifer Jason Leigh played Jill, estranged sister of Nancy Botwin, in sixteen episodes of which Showtime series?

Weeds brought Leigh in as the Connecticut sister whose house the Botwin family finally settles in, and she became a regular guest by the eighth season.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Roth played married contract killers in which cult series when it returned in 2017?

Twin Peaks reunited Leigh, as hired gun Chantal Hutchens, with Roth two years after they shared the screen in The Hateful Eight; she appears in six episodes.

In which David Cronenberg film does Jennifer Jason Leigh play Allegra Geller, a game designer hunted by assassins?

Existenz has players plug living game pods into ports in their spines, and Leigh's designer becomes a target while playing a virtual world of her own creation.

Which Algonquin Round Table writer did Jennifer Jason Leigh portray in a 1994 film directed by Alan Rudolph?

Dorothy Parker brought Leigh a Golden Globe nomination and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, in a film about the wits who met almost daily at a Manhattan hotel.

Which drama, written by Jennifer Jason Leigh's mother, cast Leigh as barroom punk singer Sadie Flood?

Georgia is named for Sadie's sister, a folk star played by Mare Winningham, who had been Leigh's camp counselor when they were teenagers.

In which Coen brothers comedy does Jennifer Jason Leigh play Amy Archer, a fast-talking Pulitzer-winning reporter?

The Hudsucker Proxy followed two failed Coen auditions for Leigh, who read biographies of Katharine Hepburn and Jean Arthur to build the rapid-fire newspaperwoman.

Which director, called a mentor by Jennifer Jason Leigh, cast her in both Short Cuts and Kansas City?

Robert Altman cast her as a phone-sex operator working from home in Short Cuts, then as a Jean Harlow-obsessed kidnapper in Kansas City.

Which actor starred opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh in both Flesh and Blood and The Hitcher?

Rutger Hauer played a mercenary who kidnaps her character in the first film and a murderous drifter who menaces her waitress in the second.

Which actor plays Junior, the ex-con who moves in with Jennifer Jason Leigh's naive Susie in Miami Blues?

Alec Baldwin's Junior hides his crime spree from Susie, and the part helped win Leigh the New York Film Critics Circle's supporting actress award for 1990.

In which crime drama does Jennifer Jason Leigh play an undercover Texas narcotics officer who becomes an addict?

Rush is set in the 1970s, with Leigh as a police recruit who gets hooked on the drugs she buys and falls for her partner; Eric Clapton wrote the score.

Which filmmaker, then Jennifer Jason Leigh's husband, directed her in Margot at the Wedding and Greenberg?

Noah Baumbach met Leigh in 2001 while she was acting on Broadway, and the two later developed the story of Greenberg together.

With which Scottish actor did Jennifer Jason Leigh co-write and co-direct the 2001 film The Anniversary Party?

Alan Cumming and Leigh also starred as the hosts, and shot the film on digital video because their cast of friends was free for only 19 days.

Jennifer Jason Leigh took over the Broadway lead in which Pulitzer-winning play about a mathematician's daughter?

Proof had Leigh play Catherine, who fears inheriting both her late father's genius and his mental illness, from September 2001 to June 2002.

In Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jennifer Jason Leigh's Stacy Hamilton works at which kind of mall business?

A pizza parlor was also Leigh's research: she took a job at a Perry's Pizza in the Sherman Oaks Galleria for three weeks to prepare for the role.

Which actress plays the visiting sister of Jennifer Jason Leigh's bride-to-be Pauline in Margot at the Wedding?

Nicole Kidman's Margot is a writer who arrives disapproving of the groom, an unsuccessful musician played by Jack Black.

Jennifer Jason Leigh played Rodney Dangerfield's engaged daughter in which 1983 comedy, co-starring Joe Pesci?

Easy Money was a rare comedy among Leigh's early films, most of which cast her in low-budget horror movies and thrillers.

Jennifer Jason Leigh played the murdered half-sister of which actress's character in the thriller In the Cut?

Meg Ryan plays Frannie, an English teacher entangled with a detective hunting a killer in her Manhattan neighborhood, while Leigh's Pauline lives above a strip club.

In the 1981 TV film The Best Little Girl in the World, Jennifer Jason Leigh played a teenager with which illness?

Anorexia drives the story of Casey Powell, a part once assigned to Jodie Foster; Leigh dropped to 86 pounds to play it.

Jennifer Jason Leigh's role as a stage mother in Childstar won her a Genie Award, a film prize from which country?

Canada's film academy gave her its supporting actress prize for the Don McKellar comedy, and the Genies later merged into the Canadian Screen Awards.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Girder, handler of a body-hijacking assassin, in which Brandon Cronenberg film?

Possessor casts Leigh as a retired killer who believes her best agent would do the job better without a family to stay attached to.

Which director made his English-language debut with Flesh and Blood, casting Jennifer Jason Leigh as Agnes?

Paul Verhoeven built the medieval adventure partly from unused material for Floris, a Dutch television series he had directed years earlier.

Jennifer Jason Leigh won critics' awards as Tralala in which adaptation of a Hubert Selby Jr. novel?

Last Exit to Brooklyn has Tralala lure sailors to a vacant lot to be robbed, and the part helped earn Leigh two critics' prizes for best supporting actress.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays shy heiress Catherine Sloper in which 1997 adaptation of a Henry James novel?

Washington Square had been filmed in 1949 as The Heiress; in Agnieszka Holland's version Leigh's mousy Catherine is courted by a suitor suspected of wanting her fortune.

In The Hateful Eight, Jennifer Jason Leigh's fugitive is being taken to hang in Red Rock, in which territory?

Wyoming Territory in the 1870s is the setting, though the film was actually shot in the mountains near Telluride, Colorado.

Jennifer Jason Leigh played the negligent mother of which actor's title character in Patrick Melrose?

Benedict Cumberbatch's Patrick spends five decades fighting addiction and the damage done by a cruel father, played by Hugo Weaving, and Leigh's Eleanor.

Jennifer Jason Leigh played which president's wife opposite Woody Harrelson in a 2016 Rob Reiner biopic?

Lady Bird Johnson stands beside Harrelson's Lyndon Johnson in LBJ, which covers the start of his administration after the Kennedy assassination.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Corey, girlfriend of which actor's small-time bank robber, in the thriller Good Time?

Robert Pattinson's Connie talks Corey into paying his brother's bail with her mother's credit card, only to find the card has been canceled.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Marilyn in Sharp Stick, a 2022 comedy written and directed by which filmmaker?

Lena Dunham also acts in the film, which follows Marilyn's naive 26-year-old daughter Sarah Jo, a babysitter in Los Angeles.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange play Iowa sisters in which reworking of King Lear?

A Thousand Acres makes Leigh's Caroline the Cordelia figure: the daughter who leaves the family farm for a law career and refuses her share of the land.

Jennifer Jason Leigh joined which ABC drama in 2012 as Kara, the long-absent mother of heroine Emily Thorne?

Revenge is inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, and Leigh appears in seven episodes of the second season as Kara Clarke-Murphy.

At age 14, Jennifer Jason Leigh attended acting workshops taught by which teacher famed for Method acting?

Lee Strasberg earned an Oscar nomination as gangster Hyman Roth in The Godfather Part II, a role he took at the suggestion of his former student Al Pacino.

Which star of The Addams Family directed Jennifer Jason Leigh as Anney in the TV film Bastard Out of Carolina?

Anjelica Huston, the films' Morticia, earned an Emmy nomination for directing the Showtime drama, in which Leigh plays the mother of a girl nicknamed Bone.

Jennifer Jason Leigh played Naomi, mother of which Beat poet portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe, in Kill Your Darlings?

Allen Ginsberg arrives at Columbia University in 1944 as the film opens, and is soon drawn into the circle around a classmate later arrested over a fatal stabbing.