Laura Dern

Laura earned a 'Special Distinction Award' in 2006 at the Independent Spirit Awards, when she re-teamed with director David Lynch to star in Inland Empire.

Laura co-starred with then-boyfriend Billy Bob Thornton in a 'white trash' romantic comedy that was written and directed by Thornton in Daddy and Them, in 2001.

Laura earned an Emmy nomination for playing a lesbian on the famous 'coming out' episode of Ellen in 1997.

Laura made a brief appearance opposite Sean Penn in the 2001 drama about a mentally disabled man seeking custody of his daughter in I Am Sam.

Laura made her directorial debut with the romantic short made for Showtime, The Gift in 1994.

Laura does yoga and meditation daily, to stay centered.

Laura plays the role of a caring girlfriend of dentist Steve Martin before his life is thrown off-track by a seductive, drug-seeking patient (Helena Bonham Carter) in Novacaine.

Laura won an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of a military widow in the HBO docudrama Afterburn in 1992.

Laura took a few years off from the big screen in 2002 to spend time with boyfriend Ben Harper and raise their first child, Ellery.

Laura teamed up with William H. Macy to play a Brooklyn couple who are mistaken for Jews by their anti-Semitic neighbors in the 2001 movie based on the Arthur Miller novel Focus.

Laura played a criminologist alongside Kevin Costner, in the Clint Eastwood dark film A Perfect World, in 2001.

Laura and her mother Diane Ladd both starred in a dinosaur-themed movie in 1993. Diane starred in the independent film Carnosaur, while Laura starred as Ellie Sattler in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park.

Laura received a $2,000.00 salary for her role in the 1985 movie Mask.

Laura particularly enjoys working with director Robert Altman, he is famous for letting the actors create their own characters.

Laura is a student of religion and psychology in her spare time, finding the media spotlight the downside of being an actress.

Laura admits that her breakup with Billy Bob Thornton was the hardest heartbreak she has had to endure, because of the public humility as well as the deep emotional betrayal.

Laura has turned down many high profile roles in favor of smaller ones with something important to say. She likes to work with film makers with strong vision of what they want and this, more than fame, has been the focus of her career.

Laura played a morally upright teacher who inspires some West Virginia schoolboys to look beyond coal-mining as their futures in October Sky.

Laura starred as a pregnant glue-sniffer caught in a struggle between pro-choice and pro-life forces in the satiric 1996 hit Citizen Ruth.

Laura sued for emancipation and won at age 13, when she was cast in the 1981 movie Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains and her mother refused to let her go. Diane felt she was too young to leave home for a movie shoot, but she did so anyway, the movie was not a hit.

Laura played daughter to her real-life mother in 5 movies: Citizen Ruth in 1996, Daddy and Them in 2001, Rambling Rose in 1991, Wild at Heart in 1990, and White Lightning in 1973.

Laura's idols are Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, and Lucille Ball.

Laura married Ben Harper on December 23, 2005. They have two children, son Ellery Walker, born on August 21, 2001, and daughter Jaya, born in Los Angeles on November 28, 2004.

Laura dated Treat Williams and Renny Harlin in 1984, Kyle MacLachlan from 1985-1989, was engaged to be married to Jeff Goldblum in 1994, and was engaged to marry Billy Bob Thornton in 1999, before he unexpectedly married Angelina Jolie in 2000.

Laura earned her first Oscar nomination in 1991 for 'Best Actress, starring as a pure-hearted nymphomanic in Martha Coolidge's Rambling Rose. Her mother co-starred and earned the 'Best Supporting Actress' Oscar nod, marking the first mother-daughter team to win nominations in the same year for the same film.

Laura made her New York stage debut in 1988 opposite her then-boyfriend Kyle MacLachlan in the Off-Broadway production of The Palace of Amateurs.

Laura landed a memorable role as a chain-smoking, hell-raising fireball, named Lula Pace Fortune, Nicolas Cage's free-spirited traveling companion in David Lynch's Wild At Heart in 1990.

Laura faced a few disappointing roles, the first in 1988's Haunted Summer, and in her 1989 role as a nurse who watches her lover (John Cusack) die of radiation poisoning in Fat Man and Little Boy. Both movies flopped at the box office.

Laura avoided being typecast as the 'good girl' when she turned in an impressive performance as a sexually curious teenager opposite Treat Williams, exploring the power of lust in Smooth Talk in 1995.

Laura attracted critical acclaim when she played Eric Stolz's blind girlfriend in Mask in 1985. She performed her role so well, that many audience members believed that she was blind.

Laura landed a small role playing an obnoxious party crasher in Adrian Lyne's Foxes in 1980.

Laura appeared in a scene from Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in 1974, with her mother. The scene called for her to eat nine ice cream cones during the shoot. Scorsese's reply to her mother's concerns that she would be sick later: 'She's not going to be sick, she's going to be an actress'.

Laura made her television debut on The Secret Storm in 1972, her mother was appearing as a regular on the show at the time.

Laura's sister Diane E. Dern was born on November 27, 1960; and she drowned at age 18 months on May 18, 1962, before Laura was born.

Laura's Godmother is Shelley Winters, her grandfather George Dern served as Secretary of War under Franklin Roosevelt, and her great-cousin was Tennessee Williams.

Laura endured teasing in her school years, she was seen as an outcast by her more conservative classmates. They made fun of her stature, she had reached 5'10" before her teen years, was extremely skinny, with large hips and big feet. She was happy when she left regular school at age nine, to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.

Laura was influenced from a young age to pursue acting, by watching her mother and father (Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern) on movie sets. She was exposed to the movie industry from infancy, obtaining several bit parts as a child.

She has got scoliosis.

Laura bears an amazing resemblance to tennis star Steffi Graff. The two are frequently mistaken for each other.