80th Academy Awards Oscar Nominations 2008 - Best Actor
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones as Hank Deerfield in In the Valley of Elah
Tommy Lee Jones' third nomination and the first in this category. He was
nominated for his supporting roles in JFK (1991) and The Fugitive (1993), for which he won the Oscar.
Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar®
for his portrayal of the uncompromising U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in the box office hit The
Fugitive in 1994. For this performance, he also received a Golden Globe Award as Best
Supporting Actor. Three years before, Jones received his first Oscar® nomination for his
portrayal of Clay Shaw in Oliver Stone’s JFK.
Jones recently directed and starred in the critically acclaimed, The Three Burials of Melquiades
Estrada, which debuted in competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Jones won Best Actor
and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga won Best Screenplay for this film about friendship and
murder along the Texas-Mexican border.
Jones recently made an appearance in Robert Altman’s big screen spin-off of Garrison Keillor’s
U.S. radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. The film also starred Meryl Streep and Kevin
Kline.
Next Jones will be seen in No Country for Old Men based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, and
written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Jones stars with Javier Bardem as a West Texas
sheriff in pursuit of a vicious and vengeful drug trafficker and assassin. Also upcoming is In the
Electric Mist with Confederate Dead in which Jones stars for director Bertrand Tavernier. The
film is produced by Michael Fitzgerald and is adapted from James Lee Burke's novel of the same
title.
In 2003, he starred with Cate Blanchett in The Missing for director Ron Howard. Prior to that he
starred with Benicio del Toro in The Hunted for director William Friedkin, and re-teamed with
Will Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld in the box office hit, Men in Black 2.
In 2000, Jones starred in Space Cowboys with James Garner and Donald Sutherland for
director/co-star Clint Eastwood, and in Rules of Engagement with Samuel L. Jackson.
Jones starred with Ashley Judd in the box office hit Double Jeopardy in 1999, and in 1998 he
reprised his role of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in U.S. Marshals, the follow-up to The Fugitive.
In 1997 he starred with Will Smith in the No. 1 box office hit of the year, Men In Black, which
grossed over $500 million worldwide.
Jones made his feature film debut in Love Story and, in a career spanning four decades, has
starred in such films as Eyes of Laura Mars, Coal Miner’s Daughter - for which he received his
first Golden Globe nomination - Stormy Monday, The Package, Under Siege, Heaven and Earth,
The Client, Natural Born Killers, Blue Sky, Batman Forever, and Cobb.
In 1995, Jones made his directorial debut with the critically acclaimed telefilm adaptation of the
Elmer Kelton book The Good Old Boys for TNT. Jones also starred in the telefilm with Sissy
Spacek, Sam Shepard, Frances McDormand and Matt Damon. For his portrayal of Hewey
Calloway, he received nominations for both a Screen Actors Guild Award and a CableACE
Award.
Jones had had previous success on the small screen. In 1983, he won an Emmy Award for Best
Actor for his performance as Gary Gilmore in The Executioner’s Song and, in 1989, was
nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the miniseries
Lonesome Dove.
His numerous network and cable credits include the title role in The Amazing Howard Hughes,
the American Playhouse production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Rainmaker for HBO, the
HBO/BBC production of Yuri Noshenko, KGB and April Morning.
In 1969, Jones made his Broadway debut in John Osborne’s A Patriot for Me. His other
Broadway appearances include Four on a Garden with Carol Channing and Sid Caesar, and
Ulysses in Nighttown with the late Zero Mostel.
Born in San Saba, Texas, he worked briefly with his father in the oil fields before leaving for St.
Mark’s School of Texas, then Harvard University, where he graduated cum laude with a degree
in English.
80th Academy Awards Oscar Nominations 2008
Best Picture
Best Animated Feature
Best Actress
Best Actor
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