On this date in 1988, actor Jesse Plemons was born in Dallas to Lisa (née Cason) and Jim Bob Plemons. His father was a firefighter and his mother trained individuals to teach special education students. He was raised in Mart, a small town near Waco, Texas.
“My parents sort of chose the town because of the [Baptist] church. I later realized my parents weren’t extremely religious, it was just what you do. It was kind of a given. … When I was older, I started to realize that there was a lot of it that didn’t make sense to me, but especially in those formative years, it felt like there was this looming figure that’s always watching you.” (Interview Magazine, Feb. 20, 2023) The pastor used to reassure the congregation he’d get them out in time to beat the Methodists to the Dairy Queen.
His success as a child actor led to the family, including older sister Jill, to live part-time in Los Angeles, where he garnered small roles in TV shows like “Judging Amy,” “CSI” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” At age 18 he joined the ensemble cast of NBC’s series “Friday Night Lights” being filmed in Austin, Texas. He appeared in 59 episodes over its five seasons and followed that with 13 episodes of “Breaking Bad” in 2012-13.
Plemons had a supporting role in “The Master” (2012), a drama partially inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. During a 10-episode role in season two of the black crime drama “Fargo” on FX, he co-starred with Kirsten Dunst as husband and wife. The onscreen relationship culminated in their actual marriage in 2022.
He and Dunst co-starred in Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” (2021), a critically acclaimed and unsettling psychological drama that won Campion the Best Director Academy Award while garnering 12 Oscar nominations.
As of this writing in 2025, they have two sons: Ennis, 6, and James, 4. “I did have both my children baptized because I love the tradition,” Dunst says, adding that she’s a “practicing Christian” who believes in God. (E! News, April 4, 2024)
Plemons professes to be inspired by photography and music when he’s not working. “I feel like I’m on my own — this may sound strange — spiritual quest that doesn’t have anything to do with religion, that just has to do with different philosophies. I’m really excited by that and excited about enjoying my life and taking it easier on myself and being as present as I can be.” (Vanity Fair, Sept. 1, 2025)
In the seven-episode HBO Max miniseries “Love & Death” (2023), Plemons played the husband of Elizabeth Olsen in the true story of a woman who murdered her friend in Texas after having an affair with her friend’s husband. “…I grew up maybe an hour and a half south of where this story took place, so there’s something that I inherently understand, in terms of religious oppression and suppressing basic human desires and all the guilt and shame that a lot of these characters carry around.” (Ibid., Interview Magazine)
Numerous film and TV roles have led to him being typecast to play “quiet and unnerving” characters. A 2024 story in The Independent was headlined “How Jesse Plemons became Hollywood’s crown prince of dysfunctional masculinity.”
With Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023), Plemons had appeared in seven Academy Award Best Picture nominees, joining a select group of actors including Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. He won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024 for his role in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” which premiered at Cannes.
He played a supporting role in the Netflix political drama “Zero Day” in 2025, a leading role in the sci-fi comedy “Bugonia” and signed to play Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games prequel “Sunrise on the Reaping.”
PHOTO: Plemons at the Netflix premiere of “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” in 2019 in Hollywood; photo by DFree/Shutterstock.
