Robin Wright

Robin Wright (birthname: Robin Gayle Wright) is an actor known for her subtlety and canny ability to adjust to the changing landscape of movies—shifting from a more indie bent earlier in her decades-long career to wider-audience entertainments as comic book franchises consumed Hollywood.

Wright tasted early success when she was cast by director Rob Reiner in the title role of the beloved fantasy adventure, The Princess Bride (1987), written by William Goldman (adapting his 1973 novel) and co-starring Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Peter Falk and Billy Crystal, and released by 20^th Century Fox to a $31 million global gross.

Wright earned her first major awards win (the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress) but no Oscar nomination—despite the movie nabbing 13 total–for her fine turn in Forrest Gump (1994), starring Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson and Sally Fields under Robert Zemeckis’s direction, and earning $678 million box office after winning six Oscars including Picture, Director, Actor and Adapted Screenplay.

Wright (credited after her marriage to Sean Penn as Robin Wright Penn) then co-starred in two of Sean Penn’s interesting directorial projects: The Crossing Guard (1995) and The Pledge (2001), both starring Jack Nicholson, the latter of which co-starred the remarkable cast of Benicio del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard and Harry Dean Stanton.

Robin Wright turned literary by taking on the colorful title role of Daniel Defoe’s definitive heroine, Moll Flanders (1996), co-starring Morgan Freeman and Stockard Channing with writer-director Pen Densham massively rewriting Defoe’s novel to the consternation of many critics and viewers. Wright co-starred with William Hurt in director/writer Eric Dignam’s psychological drama, Loved (1997), with Amy Madigan, Anthony Lucero, Paul Dooley, Joanna Cassidy, Sean Penn, and for which Wright was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for Best Female Lead.

Wright partnered again with co-star Sean Penn and for the first time with co-star John Travolta in director Nick Cassavetes’ version of his father John Cassavetes’ screenplay, She’s So Lovely (1997), with Harry Dean Stanton, Debi Mazar, and James Gandolfini, and for which Wright scored a Screen Actors Guild award nomination for Female Actor in a Leading Role. Wright stayed with Penn for David Rabe’s condensed (and lesser) screen version of his brutally frank epic play about drug-addled losers in Hollywood, Hurlyburly (1998), co-starring Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Garry Shandling, Anna Paquin, and Meg Ryan, under Anthony Drazan’s direction, and premiering at the Venice Film Festival before a Fine Line Features release.

Robin Wright co-starred with Kevin Costner and Paul Newman in the Luis Mandoki-directed romance for Warner Bros., Message in a Bottle (1999), based on Nicholas Sparks’s novel, and with John Savage, Ileana Douglas and Robbie Coltrane, and taking in a $118 million global gross. Wright then had another box office success co-starring with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in director/writer/producer M. Night Shyamalan’s superhero movie, Unbreakable (2000), the first in the Unbreakable trilogy and turning in a handsome $248 million return for Disney/Touchstone Pictures.

Wright joined co-stars Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Renée Zellweger in director Peter Kosminsky’s dramatization of Janet Finch’s 1999 novel, White Oleander (2002), with Billy Connolly, Patrick Fugit, Cole Hauser, and Noah Wyle, and released to poor box office by Warner Bros. Wright shifted away from drama to screenwriter Dennis Potter’s Paramount-backed big screen version of his brilliant BBC musical serial, The Singing Detective (2003), with Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Northam, Katie Holmes and Mel Gibson (who also produced) under Keith Gordon’s direction and which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Robin Wright joined indie filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia for his anthology or “interlink” drama, Nine Lives (2005), with a cast dominated by women, including Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Elpidia Carillo, Glenn Close, Dakota Fanning, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Holly Hunter, Molly Parker, Mary Kay Place, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Amanda Seyfried and Sissy Spacek, turning a modest profit ($1.5 million return) for Magnolia Pictures. Wright then went further into indie territory as star of director/writer Jeff Stanzler’s drama, Sorry, Haters (2005), with Abdellatif Kechiche, Elodie Bouchez, and Sandra Oh, and premiering at the Toronto Film Festival before a release by IFC Films.

Wright was cast by British director/writer/producer Anthony Minghella for his final film, Breaking and Entering (2006), co-starring Jude Law and Juliette Binoche, backed by Miramax and The Weinstein Company and released in the U.S. by MGM after a Toronto Film Festival premiere. Wright reunited with Forrest Gump director, Robert Zemeckis, for two more movies: the medieval tale Beowulf (2007), grossing $196 million for Paramount Pictures/Warner Bros.; and then delivering her first motion-capture performance in Zemeckis’s version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (2009), starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, and Cary Elwes, and grossing $325 million globally.

Wright appeared in support opposite Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, and Helen Mirren in the Kevin Macdonald-directed thriller, State of Play (2009), with Jason Bateman and Jeff Daniels, which delivered poor box office ($89 million against $60 million costs) for lead producers Working Title Films and StudioCanal and distributors Universal Pictures and StudioCanal. Wright then joined director/writer Rebecca Miller as star in the title role in the American indie movie, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), with Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves, and Winona Ryder, and premiered at the Berlin Film Festival before a modest release by Screen Media Films.

Robin Wright joined director/producer Robert Redford in the role of the only woman who conspired to kill Pres. Abraham Lincoln for The Conspirator (2010), co-starring James McAvoy, Kevin Kline, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Huston, Justin Long, Colm Meaney, and Tom Wilkinson, but which lost money ($15.5 million gross against $25 million costs) for distributors Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions/Focus Features International after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.

Wright was cast in another Best Picture Oscar nominee with the Bennett Miller-directed drama, Moneyball (2011), co-written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman and released to a solid $110 million box office for Columbia Pictures/Sony after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival. Wright partnered with director/co-writer (with James Ellroy) Oren Moverman as a member of the fine cast of the LAPD drama, Rampart (2011), starring Woody Harrelson, Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver and Steve Buscemi, and released by Millennium Entertainment after a Toronto Film Festival premiere.

Wright was cast in another hotly anticipated novel-to-screen adaptation, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), director David Fincher’s and screenwriter Steven Zaillian’s version of Stieg Larsson’s massive best-seller starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Steven Berkoff and Joely Richardson, returning over $239 million for Columbia Pictures/MGM/Sony Pictures Releasing.

Robin Wright had one of her most unusual projects as both star and producer of director/writer Ari Folman’s French-backed, English-language live-action/animated feature, The Congress (2013), in which Wright played a fictionalized version of herself, co-starring Paul Giamatti, Jon Hamm, Danny Huston, Harvey Keitel, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, and premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. Wright continued working in the French filmmaking community with director Anne Fontaine’s Adoration (2013), based on Doris Lessing’s 2003 novella, The Grandmothers, and co-starring Naomi Watts and premiering at the Sundance Film Festival (under the title Two Mothers).

Wright worked with another European filmmaker, Anton Corbijn, on the John le Carré spy thriller adaptation, A Most Wanted Man (2014), co-starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, and Homayoun Ershadi, and returning over $36 million globally after a Sundance Film Festival premiere. Wright landed a role in director/producer Baltasar Kormakur’s account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, Everest (2015), co-starring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington and Jake Gyllenhaal, premiering at the Venice Film Festival before grossing a strong $203 million (against $55 million costs) for Universal Pictures.

Robin Wright entered the DC Comics Universe as General Antiope in three movies over four years: the Patty Jenkins-directed pair of Wonder Woman (2017) and its disappointing sequel Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), both starring Gal Gadot and grossing a cumulative $994 million for Warner Bros.; and then in the director’s cut of the Zack Snyder-directed Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021), co-starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, and Gadot. Wright appeared in another franchise, the long-awaited sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 (2017), co-starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas and Jared Leto, but returning disappointing box office for Warner Bros. ($276.6 gross against $185 million costs).

Wright had made short films and then jumped into feature filmmaker as director-star of the fine, subdued wilderness drama, Land (2021), with Demián Bichir and Kim Dickens, and released by Focus Features (in the US) and Universal International (ex-US) after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Wright took on another hyphenate project as co-star/producer of the crime thriller, Devil’s Peak (2023), directed by Ben Young and based on David Joy’s novel, Where All Light Tends to Go, and co-starring Billy Bob Thornton, Hopper Penn, Brain d’Arcy James and Jackie Earle Haley, and released by Screen Media.

Robin Wright made her long-awaited reunion with filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and star Tom Hanks in the decades-spanning family saga, Here (2024), co-written by Eric Roth and based on Richard McGuire’s 2014 graphic novel, with Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly, and released by TriStar Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing. Wright then took a co-starring role in the 1960s-set political comedy, Kissinger Takes Paris (date to be announced), directed and written by Jeff Stanzler and co-starring Mary-Louise Parker, Lucy Hale, Tim Roth (as Henry Kissinger) and David Cross.