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For years, Juno Temple has been that girl you see in the all of the major dramas whose face you haven’t been able to put a name to. She’s that girl who’s the subject of a bunch of Tyler Shields photo shoots. Oh, and she’s in the headline of a number of those “Next in Hollywood” profiles. But this summer, you’re guaranteed to remember who she is.
First of all, you couldn’t have missed her in The Dark Knight Rises. As 13-year-old prostitute Holly Robinson, the 23-year-old actress played Catwoman Selina Kyle’s doting young sidekick. Up next, she’ll be premiering her most memorable, albeit teeth-cringing, role yet: as a 12-year-old country bumpkin whom her brother (played by Emile Hirsch) uses as a ransom to placate the titular hitman Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey). And if you’ve read anything about Killer Joe, out this Friday, it’s a black comedy that—er, comfortably tussles with the most taboo situations.
Clearly, Juno Temple's talent for risqué roles won't let us forget her anytime soon, so we might as well get cozy with the future Oscar winner. That said, get to know more about the up-and-coming English actress after the jump.
Her first film was Vigo: Passion for Life (1997).
With her parents being producer Amanda Prie and director Julien Temple, Temple's career in the film industry was already predetermined. At just eight years old, she booked her first acting gig on her father's film, Vigo: Passion for Life, which tells the story of French filmmaker Jean Vigo and his struggle to balance his sanity, his marriage and his work.
But Vigo wouldn't be the only project she'd work on with her father. Three years later, Temple would play the part of Emma Southey in Pandaemonium, which chronicled the doomed friendship between English poets Samuel Taylor Coolidge and William Wordsworth during the French Revolution.
She was Cate Blanchett's daughter in Notes on a Scandal (2006).
Adapted from the Zoe Heller-written novel of the same name, Notes on a Scandal centers around a malicious high school teacher Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) who becomes romantically fixated on an unknowing younger teacher Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), who's engaged in an affair with a 15-year-old student. While Hart's world spins out of control with her revelation of her infidelity, her family gets caught in the cross-fire, namely her husband Richard (Bill Nighy) and her daughter Polly, played by Juno Temple.
Although both Blanchett and Dench received praise for their performances, a 15-year-old Temple's performance proved her penchant for dramatic roles. As Polly, Temple perfectly played the the foul-mouthed, petulant and angry teen whose world is essentially destroyed by her unfaithful mother.
She played Lola Quincey in Atonement (2007).
In the award-winning drama that follows the doomed relationship between Briony's (Saoirse Ronan) elder sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and her lowly lover Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), Temple played Briony's cousin Lola Quincey, a victim of rape who becomes the evidence Briony uses to accuse her elder sister's lover of sexually assaulting multiple women, including her sister. Saoirse Ronan may have shot to fame after her portrayal of the misguided Briony Tallis earned her an Academy Award nomination, but Juno Temple also deserves some recognition for the gravitas she brought to her catalytic role.
She played Michael Cera's love interest in Year One (2009).
You might've skipped Year One for the same reason most people did—Jack Black's tired chubby rube act and Michael Cera once again playing Michael Cera. Despite the lack of laughs in the comedy, which follows the misadventures of the pair of medieval bumpkins, there's one refreshing aspect of the film: then-newcomer Juno Temple. As Eema, Temple played a virginal and aloof tribeswoman whom Michael Cera's Oh must save from slavery.
Her first leading role was as Danielle in Dirty Girl (2010).
In Abe Sylvia's 1980s-set film, which co-starred William H. Macy and Milla Jovovich, Temple played Danielle, a wanton Oklahoma high school student who befriends a closeted gay student (Jeremy Dozier) living in fear of his homophobic dad (Dwight Yoakam) and encourages him to run away with her to escape the chaos of their home lives and help her find her birth father (Tim McGraw). With her Lolita-meets-Pamela-Anderson sex appeal defining Dirty Girl, it's difficult not to feel magnetized towards Temple to the point where you'd follow her whims, too.
She starred as London in Kaboom (2010).
In the Gregg Araki-directed film described as “a sci-fi centered on the sexual awakening of a group of college students,” Temple definitely stands out amongst a cast that is led by Thomas Dekker and Haley Bennett. Then again, it's difficult not to, given her central role in the film: playing a sex fiend who may or may not be instrumental in saving the world. If you're confused, so are we, so just watch the trailer and interpret it for yourself.
She appeared as Anne of Austria in The Three Musketeers (2011).
Temple has a knack for crucial supporting roles. In the latest take on Alexandre Dumas' classic novel, Temple adopts the role of Queen Anne of Austria, the innocent wife of King Louis XIII who is posed as the central figure in France's impending war with England. She becomes a puppet for the devious plans of the evil and power hungry Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) whom the Musketeers must save from being blackmailed.
She played a lesbian werewolf in Jack and Diane (2012).
Although Bradley Rust Gray's Jack and Dianebewildered audiences at the Tribeca Film Festival early this year, one thing was clear: Juno Temple was the redeeming point of the movie. However flawed her teenaged character Diane was—with inconsistent lycanthropic urges and all—Temple added a sense of charming naiveté to a role that required her to oscillate between a monstrous beast and a detached foreigner in love with another angsty teen girl, Jack (Riley Keough).
But past her performance, the director even tweaked the character to fit Temple more perfectly. Originally set to be played by Ellen Page as an oddball American, Diane became a bumbling UK transplant with a talent for fashion design. In real life, the British actress briefly attended London College of Fashion to study lingerie design.
She starred opposite Kay Panabaker in Little Birds (2011).
In theaters August 31, the coming-of-age drama follows Temple as a wayward 15-year-old who runs away to Los Angeles with her best friend (Kay Panabaker). Frustrated with living with her manic mother (Leslie Mann) and visiting her tired young aunt (Kate Bosworth) in the ghost town that is the shores of the Salton Sea, Lily drags her friend up the California coast to follow a group of boys only to discover how much their freedom will actually cost them.
The indie film was the one of two films (the second being Kaboom) that Temple premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. Thanks to her work, she was touted, along with Elizabeth Olsen, as the "It Girl" of the two-week long event.
She's starring in 2014's Maleficent alongside Angelina Jolie.
The actress' list of A-list co-stars is endless. Up next: Angelina Jolie as the titular Maleficient. Temple will be featured in the Sleeping Beauty prequel, which tells the story of how the evil queen came to power and cursed the princess, as Thistlewit, the most remiss and superficial of the trio of pixie fairies who are assigned to take care of Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) in the woods.
