By Rosie Bettis
Rising star and familiar face at the London Film Festival this year, Jesse Plemons is in our opinion one of the biggest upcoming stars of 2015.
Born in a small town in Dallas, Texas, he spent much of his childhood attending acting classes at Dallas Young Actors Studio in his hometown, but Jesse is closer to home than we think, as he is actually of English and Scottish ancestry. That red hair is a dead giveaway!
Jesse has become best known for his roles in Battleship (2012), Paul (2011) and Friday Night Lights (2006) and his most recent role saw his claim to fame in the new release of Black Mass, (featuring at this years film festival) starring alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Depp.
Known for his uncanny resemblance to Matt Damon, nicknamed in the industry “Meth Damon”, Jesse has proven to be a lot more than just a familiar face. Turns out, Plemons is a man of many talents. Not only is Jesse known to be close friends with his co-stars of Friday Night Lights, Taylor Kitsch and Zach Gilford but he is also the only member of the film to have played football in real life. He says ‘I grew up half the time in a small town called Mart, Texas, and half the time in L.A., because I was acting. My high school was crazy about football’. Aside from acting and a love for football, Plemons also sings in the alternative folk rock band Cowboy and Indian together with Daniel James and Jazz Mills.
London film festival saw Jesse in ‘The Program’, a story of a Irish sports journalist who becomes convinced that Lance Armstrong’s performances during the Tour de France victories are fuelled by banned substances. We also see Jesse playing a very different role in ‘Black Mass’, the true story of Whitey Bulger, who became an FBI informant to take down a Mafia family invading his turf.
–