Jena Malone: Click Here For Jena's Filmography

Born November 21, 1984 in Lake Tahoe, Nevada she spent her first ten years there like any other child, playing in the woods and running around. It was her mother's background in community theatre that Jena was first exposed to the stage. There was a brief stint of about six months in Las Vegas before Jena persuaded her mom to move to L.A. so she could pursue more work.

Once in L.A. Jena found herself doing several commercials and some music videos until she was cast in Showtime's Bastard Out of Carolina. Based on the bestseller by Dorothy Allison and directed by Anjelica Huston this was Jena's big break. The film showed at Cannes and won a lot of attention as did Jena.

Since then she has been cast in Contact, For Love of the Game and a little seen gem called Cheaters (Check it out if you haven't already). After a year in L.A. went to New York to attend the Professional Children's School to study while not working on films.

A minor hitch in her career occurred in late 1999 when Jena filed for legal emancipation from her mother. Jena was charging her mother with mismanagement of her earnings, failure to pay taxes, and seeking emancipation. In January of 2000 Jena won the lawsuit preventing her mother from interfering with either her career or earnings. This also allows Jena to be treated as an adult in the industry and work longer hours on set.

Though with her eyes on screen writing and perhaps directing down the road, she has been garnering more praise for her work in her latest films. Life as A House with Kevin Kline and Donnie Darko with Drew Barrymore. Despite the mainstream film success she still hits the indie circuit as well with films like The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. Although the three films share the fact that she is playing a teenager, each of her characters seemed to be messed up in different ways and Jena never crosses the border and gives a false performance.

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Copyright© Staffwriter: Rob Paul