Laura Elizabeth Dern born during the shooting of Roger Cormans "The Wild Angels" on Feb 10, 1967. The Daughter of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Dern has been nominated for multiple Emmy's and Golden Globe's for various television movies, and "Rambling Rose", she got a Best Actress Oscar nomination co-starring her mom Ladd.
She has starred surreal films such as those directed by David lynch and his take on the aura of the dangerous Dark Sexuality side of cinema, In which she starred in "Wild At Heart", "Smooth Talker", and "Blue Velvet"
"I get so protective of David [Lynch], like an older sister or something, which is so absurd. He's not waiting for us to get the movie because he doesn't think the cinema is about 'getting it'. I think he believes - which I've found very rare in filmmakers - in the intelligence of the audience, that they're intelligent enough to discover the film and what it means within themselves."
She began studying at the Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles at the age of nine and was enthralled to land a bit part as a party crasher in Adrian Lyne's "Foxes" (1980).Dern earned bounding success as the gum-cracking, chain-smoking, hell-raising Lula Pace Fortune, Nicolas Cage's uninhibited companion in David Lynch's"Wild at Heart" (1990). A character opposite to her "Blue Velvet" one. On the run from her crazed mother – played with manic glee by real-life mom Ladd – Lula summed up the spirit of the enterprise ."The whole world's wild at heart and weird on top." The next year, again acting with Ladd, she won widespread critical acclaim as Rose, a sweetly wanton orphan-turned-housekeeper whose presence disrupts a 1930s Southern family in Martha Coolidge's "Rambling Rose" (1991). Dern received a Best Actress Oscar nomination while Ladd settled for a Best Supporting Actress nod, making them the first mother-daughter team cited in the same year for the same film.
Dern's pre-teen gawkiness matured into lithe beauty, but this doesn't prevent Dern from fearlessly throwing herself into a wide variety of roles which are sometimes unflattering, an excellent example being her unflinchingly comic performance of an enormously aggravating loser whose pregnancy becomes a social and political football in Citizen Ruth (1996). This aftermath being in Dern being one of the most interesting actors working in Hollywood today.
Dern enlightened critics again the following year, earning an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for her performance as a widowed military wife in the HBO documentary-drama "Afterburn" (1992).In 1997, Dern was featured in Widespread Panic's music video for their song, "Aunt Avis," which was directed by Dern's then boyfriend and future fiancé, Billy Bob Thornton.
"It's really fun to act like a bimbo. But it's fun to act like a bimbo only when people know that you really aren't one."
She secured her place in celebrity history (and a third Emmy nomination) as the lesbian lover in the "coming out" episode of "Ellen" (ABC, 1994-98), and turned around to give a critically-acclaimed performance as a low-rent mother of four who contracts to sell her next baby to a yuppie couple in "The Baby Dance" Showtime, 1998 Joe Johnston's "October Sky" (1999) presented Dern as a morally upright teacher who inspires West Virginia schoolboys to look beyond their coal-mining community
Unfortunately, Dern – who had made a practice of flying under the tabloid radar – suffered a shocking blow in the public eye when her then fiancé of a year, Billy Bob Thornton, left her abruptly for his much younger “Pushing Tin” (1999) co-star, Angelina Jolie, going so far as to marry her within weeks.
Having previously dated such Hollywood talent as Treat Williams, Renny Harlin, Kyle Maclachlan, Jeff Goldblum and Billy Bob Thornton, Dern eventually married musician Ben Harper in 2005.
"For the first time in my life, everything in my life makes sense," Laura Dern, 37, told PEOPLE about becoming a mom to son Ellery, now 3. Dern and her fiancé, musician Ben Harper, will welcome their second child this winter.
Wearing a June Cleaver wardrobe, Dern glowed in “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” (2005), where she had a supporting role as a woman who encourages a mother of 12 struggling to keep her impoverished family together to join a group of successful song-writing housewives. Surprisingly going back into the skewed world of David Lynch, Dern went on to earn universal rave reviews for anchoring the disjointed and surreal “Inland Empire” (2006), where she played an actress thrown into a rabbit-infested identity crisis odyssey. Some critics hailed the hallucinatory effort as the director’s finest work while others felt Lynch slipping into self-parody,yet although both parties agreed that Dern’s performance was outstanding.
Dern made her mark on the small screen with an Emmy-nominated portrayal of Florida Secretary of State Katharine Harris in HBO’s acclaimed political drama “Recount” (2008). The fact-based picture chronicled the events surrounding the 2000 presidential election and earned a number of Emmy nominations for its remarkable dramatization of the complicated story. For her work, Dern also earned a 2008 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the television movie and miniseries category.
Dern is known as an outspoken activist and supporter of many charitable causes, such as Healthy Child Healthy World, which aims to raise awareness about toxic substances that can affect a child's health. She has been acknowledged with several awards from the independent film industry including the Sundance Institute and was the subject of an aggressive media campaign by David Lynch to win her an Academy Award nomination for her work in Inland Empire.
During the 66th Golden Globe Awards, on January 11th, 2009, Dern expressed support for the incoming administration of Barack Obama during her acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film for her work on the film Recount. She is quoted as saying, "I will cherish this as a reminder of the extraordinary, incredible outpouring of people who demanded their voice be heard in this last election so we can look forward to amazing change in this country. Thank you so much!"
