Jesse Plemons

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Jesse Plemons won the Best Actor award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival for Kinds of Kindness. In that film he played three separate men, named Robert, Daniel and Andrew.

  The American actor was born on the 2nd of April 1988, and his career has been shaped by working with some of the most distinctive directors in film. He has also been nominated for an Academy Award and for three Primetime Emmy Awards.

  How does a boy from a tiny Texas town end up as the face these directors reach for? What do they see in an actor so often cast as quiet, odd and unsettling? And why did one of his biggest early roles come with a nickname he spent years trying to outgrow?

  41402954

• 2. A Texas Childhood

  ›

  Mart, Texas, sits 21 miles east of Waco. It is a small town, and it is where Jesse Plemons grew up after being born in Dallas.

  His father, Jim Bob, worked as a firefighter and competed in amateur rodeo. His mother, Lisa, whose maiden name was Cason, trained people in special education. Jesse was the younger of their two children.

  At age three, Plemons appeared in a Coca-Cola commercial, and that was the start of his career. At eight he began doing extra work. With his family behind him, he spent time auditioning in Los Angeles and landing small jobs.

  Varsity Blues, released in 1999, gave him an early film credit. He also guest-starred on Walker, Texas Ranger and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. His first prominent role came in the 2002 film Children on Their Birthdays.

  Like Mike arrived the same year, and When Zachary Beaver Came to Town followed in 2003. From 2003 to 2006 he picked up guest roles on Judging Amy, The Lyon's Den, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Grey's Anatomy.

  In 2007, Plemons earned his high school diploma through the Texas Tech University Independent School District, a distance learning program. Before that he attended schools in Mart and played football in middle school, junior high and at Mart High School. He moved to the online program once acting jobs became more frequent.

  The football background would soon matter. In 2006 he joined a television series built around a Texas high school team.

  359810

• 3. Landry Clarke

  ›

  Plemons was 18 years old in 2006 when he joined the ensemble cast of NBC's Friday Night Lights. The series was filmed in Austin, Texas.

  The show followed a high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas. Plemons played Landry Clarke, the best friend of quarterback Matt Saracen. In the first season Landry supplied comic relief, and he was not on the team at all.

  Cast and crew joked that Plemons played football better than most of the actors who portrayed players. That joke had a real basis, because he had played the sport in high school.

  In the second season, Landry joined the Panthers. Plemons told director Jeffrey Reiner that he would do his own stunts. His first football scene had Landry taking a beating over and over.

  Co-star Taylor Kitsch, who played Tim Riggins, hit him during filming, and Plemons' chin split open. It took 11 stitches to close the wound.

  Critics and fans both loved the series. It ended after five seasons, following a move to DirecTV in 2011.

  The friendships survived the cancellation. In 2012, Plemons reunited with Kitsch and with Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg for the film Battleship. Berg directed it and wrote Plemons' part with him in mind. Berg explained his reasoning this way: "I know that he's really good for Taylor and he makes Taylor better. So, I wrote that whole part for Jesse. I never thought of it as a Friday Night Lights reunion. I thought of it as protection, bringing a trusted family member in."

  That same year, Plemons began work on the final season of an AMC crime drama.

  1314151617

• 4. Meth Damon

  ›

  From 2012 to 2013, Plemons played Todd Alquist in the fifth and final season of Breaking Bad. He was a recurring cast member in Season 5A. He became a series regular for Season 5B.

  Fans of the show gave him the nickname "Meth Damon" because he resembles the actor Matt Damon. The comparison had a curious history. In All the Pretty Horses, released in 2000, a 12-year-old Plemons had played the younger version of Damon's character.

  In 2012 he also appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson's drama The Master. He played the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character. His appearance has been compared to Hoffman's as well.

  In January 2014, Plemons was in consideration for a new lead in Star Wars Episode VII, later titled Star Wars: The Force Awakens. By March 2014 he was one of five actors being considered for the lead role of Finn. The part went to the British actor John Boyega.

  Plemons returned to Todd Alquist in 2019 for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, a sequel film to the series.

  Around 2022, Plemons noted that fewer people had started calling him "Meth Damon."

  3712182127

• 5. Quiet Menace

  ›

  Ed Blumquist is a butcher in the second season of Fargo, which Plemons joined in late 2015. His wife, Peggy, was played by Kirsten Dunst. The role earned Plemons a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

  In December 2017, he appeared in "USS Callister," an episode in the fourth series of the anthology show Black Mirror. His character, Robert Daly, was the episode's main figure and a sadistic introvert. The performance brought a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

  A third Emmy nomination came for the 2023 HBO Max true crime series Love & Death. There he starred alongside Elizabeth Olsen as Allan Gore.

  Across these parts, a pattern has emerged. Plemons is known for being typecast as quiet and unnerving characters in his most prominent roles, including Breaking Bad, Black Mirror and Kinds of Kindness.

  His style has a recognizable signature. It includes his Texan accent, a cowboy-inspired persona and dramatic pauses in his speech.

  Robert Daly eventually returned. In 2025 the character came back in the follow-up episode "USS Callister: Into Infinity."

  28293845

• 6. Directors Who Return

  ›

  The Irishman, directed by Martin Scorsese, premiered at the New York Film Festival on the 27th of September 2019. Plemons had a supporting role in the crime drama.

  He reunited with Scorsese in 2023 for Killers of the Flower Moon. That western-thriller starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, and it premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

  Steven Spielberg cast him in Bridge of Spies in 2015, and again in the historical drama The Post in 2017. Director Scott Cooper also used him twice. Plemons appeared in Cooper's western Hostiles in 2017 and starred in his horror film Antlers in 2021.

  In 2020, Charlie Kaufman gave Plemons a lead role in the psychological drama I'm Thinking of Ending Things. The performance won critical praise and a Gotham Independent Film Award nomination for Best Actor.

  Jane Campion's western drama The Power of the Dog followed in 2021. Plemons played a rancher, and the performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

  In 2025 he joined the Netflix political thriller series Zero Day, led by Robert De Niro. It reunited him with Lesli Linka Glatter, who had directed Love & Death.

  3940343542

• 7. The Lanthimos Years

  ›

  In September 2022, it was announced that Plemons would star in Yorgos Lanthimos' film Kinds of Kindness. His co-stars were Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley.

  He ended 2025 with a leading role opposite Stone in Lanthimos' black comedy Bugonia. Plemons played a beekeeper obsessed with conspiracy theories, and the performance drew critical acclaim.

  Lanthimos spoke about why he wanted Plemons: "He's very sensitive to all kinds of emotions and triggers. It's beautiful to see the little things that can make him do something different, a word you tell him, something that changes in the room. He absorbs everything. He allows the situation or the other actor to affect him. That vulnerability and generosity are great qualities for an actor."

  Bugonia brought nominations for Best Lead Actor from three institutions. They were the British Academy Film Awards, the Actor Awards and the Golden Globes.

  4043444557

• 8. Home and Horizon

  ›

  Windfall, a noir thriller directed by Charlie McDowell in 2022, carried Plemons' first credit as a producer. He also starred in it.

  In March 2016, Plemons began a relationship with his Fargo co-star Kirsten Dunst. The two got engaged a year later. Their first son was born in May 2018 and their second in May 2021.

  The couple also worked together on screen. They both appeared in The Power of the Dog, and in February 2022 each of them was nominated for an Academy Award for it. They married officially in July of that year. They live in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California.

  In 2026, Plemons is due to play Plutarch Heavensbee in Sunrise on the Reaping. The film is a Hunger Games prequel, adapted from the bestselling novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins.

  3650515255