Jesse Plemons

Jesse Plemons is an American actor born on April 2, 1988. Known for his portrayals of quiet, unnerving, and eccentric characters, his work across film and television has earned him a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor along with nominations for an Academy Award, Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and British Academy Film Awards. His acting style is characterized by a cowboy-inspired persona, a Texan accent, and dramatic pauses.

Plemons was born in Dallas and raised in Mart, Texas. He is the younger of two children born to Jim Bob Plemons, a firefighter and amateur rodeo competitor, and Lisa Plemons, a special education trainer. He played football through middle school and high school in Mart until receiving increased acting work led him to transfer to an online program. He graduated from the Texas Tech University Independent School District distance learning program in 2007. Plemons began his career at age three in a Coca-Cola commercial, later appearing as a child actor in films such as Varsity Blues, All the Pretty Horses, and Children on Their Birthdays, alongside various television guest roles.

His breakthrough came in 2006 when he joined the cast of the NBC drama series Friday Night Lights as Landry Clarke, playing the role until 2011. He subsequently gained wider prominence portraying Todd Alquist in the fifth season of AMC's crime drama series Breaking Bad from 2012 to 2013, later reprising the role in the 2019 sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. During this period, he also appeared in supporting film roles, including Battleship, The Master, Black Mass, and Bridge of Spies.

Plemons earned critical acclaim and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of butcher Ed Blumquist in the second season of the FX anthology series Fargo in 2015. He received additional Emmy nominations for his performances as Robert Daly in the Black Mirror episode USS Callister and for his role in the HBO Max miniseries Love & Death. His supporting film work continued in projects such as American Made, Hostiles, The Post, Game Night, Vice, and Martin Scorsese's crime drama The Irishman.

Expanding into lead performances, Plemons featured in Other People, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and the noir thriller Windfall, which also served as his first credit as a producer. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Jane Campion's western drama The Power of the Dog. Plemons reunited with Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon before winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his role in Kinds of Kindness. He also earned BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Actor Award nominations for playing a beekeeper in Bugonia.

Plemons's ongoing activity includes a role in the Netflix political thriller series Zero Day and his casting as Plutarch Heavensbee in the film adaptation Sunrise on the Reaping. In his personal life, Plemons began a relationship with his Fargo co-star Kirsten Dunst in 2016. The couple married in July 2022, have two sons, and reside in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California.