American actress, director, and film producer from a noted family, whose performance in Marriage Story (2019) earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a fifth Golden Globe Award. In 2017, she began starring in the drama series Big Little Lies, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
Laura Dern is the daughter of Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern, both Oscar-nominated actors, and related on her mother’s side to playwright Tennessee Williams. Her parents divorced when she was two and she grew up with her mom. She was 12 before she formed a relationship with her dad. By nine, she was interested in acting.
Though not encouraged by her parents, Dern made a film debut as an extra in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. She took acting classes and had a first substantive role in Foxes at 11, and a breakthrough as a blind girl in Mask. Playing opposite her mom in Rambling Rose, they both earned Oscar nominations. In 1993 she played in the monster hit, Jurassic Park.
She and her co-star, Jeff Goldblum, began a romance at that time. By 1997 they were no longer together and she was seen in the company of Billy Bob Thornton.
Dern studies metaphysics and philosophy, practices yoga and meditation.
After several years together, she and rocker Ben Harper, 32, welcomed 6 lbs. son Ellery Walker on 21 August 2001. On 28 November 2004 the actress gave birth to their second child a daughter born at the couple’s Los Angeles home. Dern and Harper married on 23 December 2005 in their Los Angeles home. In October 2010, Harper filed for divorce from Dern, citing irreconcilable differences. They briefly reconciled and attended the 2012 Golden Globe Awards together, but Dern reactivated the divorce by filing a legal response in July 2012. The divorce was finalized in September 2013.
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