Jena Malone by Tina Turnbow for Bare October 2021

Jena Laine Malone (born November 21, 1984) is an American actress, musician, and photographer. She began her career as a child actor, and became known for her roles in both independent films and mainstream blockbuster features. Her accolades include two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award nomination, and a Saturn Award.

A native of Sparks, Nevada, Malone spent her early life there and in Las Vegas, while her mother acted in local theater productions. Inspired to become an actress herself, Malone convinced her mother to relocate to Los Angeles. After auditioning for several projects, Malone was cast by Anjelica Huston in her television film Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), for which she earned numerous accolades, including Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Award nominations. She subsequently obtained roles in the major studio productions Contact (1997) and Stepmom (1998), for the former of which she earned a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor.

Malone appeared in the independent psychological thriller Donnie Darko (2001), which became a cult film, as well as the drama Life as a House, and the miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003). She subsequently starred in the dark comedy Saved! (2004) before being cast as Lydia Bennet in Joe Wright's adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (2005). Malone continued to appear in both independent and mainstream features throughout the 2000s, with supporting roles in the dramas The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), Into the Wild (2007), and the horror film The Ruins (2008). In the late 2000s Malone ventured into music, releasing a single as Jena Malone and the Blood Stains in 2007. The following year she began performing street shows with a musical project called The Shoe, which features Malone performing with various instruments contained in a steamer trunk.

Malone made her foray into action films with Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch (2011) and was subsequently cast as Johanna Mason in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), a role she reprised in two sequels between 2014 and 2015. She was then cast in supporting roles in Nicolas Winding Refn's psychological horror film The Neon Demon and Tom Ford's thriller Nocturnal Animals (both 2016).