Jeanne Tripplehorn

Born on June 10, 1963, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jeanne is the daughter of Suzanne Ferguson and Tom Tripplehorn. Ferguson is a published non-fiction author while Tripplehorn was a guitarist once associated with 1960s pop and rock group Gary Lewis & the Playboys. She has three brothers, Kelly, Jason, and Daniel. When Jeanne was two years old, her parents divorced.

She attended Edison High School before enrolling at the University of Tulsa for one semester. Later, she was educated at the drama division of Juilliard School in New York as a member of Group 19 (1986-90). Fellow actress Laura Linney was her batchmate.

During the early years of her career, she had a six-year long relationship with her ‘Reality Bites’ co-star Ben Stiller. Tripplehorn began dating character actor Leland Orser in 1999. They married a year later, on October 14, 2000. The couple has a son together, August Tripplehorn Orser (born on May 22, 2002).

Jeanne Tripplehorn started off by performing in the local television shows, ‘Creature Feature’ (1982-83) and ‘Night Shift’, when she was still a student. After finishing her education, she debuted as an actress in John Patrick Shanley's ‘The Big Funk’, a play that ‘The Guardian’ described as “Friends set in a self-help manual on acid.” She followed this up with the 1993 production of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore’, where she had Val Kilmer as her co-actor. She also worked with Lili Taylor and Amy Irving in the Broadway production of Anton Chekov’s ‘Three Sisters’.

She had her screen debut in 1991 in the television film ‘The Perfect Tribute’. She played the character, Julia. Later, she collaborated with Ben Stiller for the first time in 1992 on ‘Ben Stiller Show’, making an appearance in three episodes as The Wilson Woman / Goo.

Tripplehorn portrayed the police psychologist Dr Beth Garner who has a passionate affair with the male protagonist Detective Nick Curren (Michael Douglas) in director Paul Verhoeven’s neo-noir erotic thriller ‘Basic Instinct.’ The movie provoked heated controversy at the time of its release due to its explicit sexual content and the unapologetic rendition of violence. The film has since come to be seen as a milestone in terms of depiction of sexuality in Hollywood films.

In 1993, she was cast alongside Matthew Broderick in the romantic comedy ‘The Night We Never Met’. Her next project, Sydney Pollack’s ‘The Firm’, remains her best work to date. She starred as Abby McDeere, wife of Tom Cruise’s character Mitch McDeere. Based on the novel of the same name by John Grisham, the film was a critical and commercial success, earning $270.2 million at the box office.

In ‘Waterworld’ (1995), she played the female lead Helen opposite Kevin Costner. Made on a humongous budget ($172 million), the film did not earn the money back at the box-office and the critics compared it with previous box-office disasters ‘Heaven’s Gate’ (1980) and ‘Ishtar’ (1987). However, through home video sales and TV broadcast rights, the movie eventually turned profitable.

Tripplehorn used to be a DJ in her home city of Tulsa.

She was originally supposed to play Mia Wallace in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994) before the role went to Uma Thurman.

Due to her mother’s passing only weeks before the filming started, she had to turn down the role of Carrie in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ (1994). Andie MacDowell was eventually cast for the part.