The following year, she gained further critical acclaim for her role as Harvey Keitel's estranged daughter in Wayne Wang's Smoke and also as Val Kilmer's wife in Michael Mann's Heat. Oliver Stone, who had seen her in Nuñez's film, cast Judd in Natural Born Killers, but her scenes were later cut from the version of the film released theatrically. It was just a matter of creating the scene and trusting that it was worth telling." Dickerson that the resonance of the character was Judd's creation: "The resonance, those moments, was not contrived. She received rave reviews playing Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman trying to make a new life for herself, and it was this performance that would launch her career as an actress. "From the first three sentences, I knew it was written for me", she told the San Jose Mercury News. Convinced that this role would shape the rest of her career, Judd was extremely nervous for the audition, nearly getting into a car accident en route. In 1993, she fought for and was cast in her first starring role playing the title character in Victor Nuñez's Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize dramatic winner Ruby in Paradise. She made her feature film debut with a small role in 1992's Kuffs. From 1991 to 1994, she had a recurring role as Reed, the daughter of Alex ( Swoosie Kurtz), on the NBC drama Sisters. Starting in 1991, Judd appeared as Ensign Robin Lefler, a Starfleet officer, in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, " Darmok" and " The Game". Judd at an ABC Missing event at The Paley Center in April 2012 Around that time, she moved to Williamson County, Tennessee and lived near her mother and sister. During this time, she worked as a hostess at The Ivy restaurant and lived in a Malibu rental house. Īfter college she drove to Hollywood, where she studied with acting teacher Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West. She graduated from the UK Honors Program and was nominated to Phi Beta Kappa but did not graduate with her class. She spent a semester studying in France as part of her major. An alumna of the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Kentucky, she majored in French and minored in anthropology, art history, theater, and women's studies. She briefly tried modeling in Japan during a school break. Blazer High School ( Ashland, Kentucky) and Franklin High School in Tennessee. Judd attended 13 schools before college, including the Sayre School ( Lexington, Kentucky), Paul G. The following year, her mother took Ashley back to Naomi's native Kentucky, where Judd spent the majority of her childhood. At the time of her birth, her mother was a homemaker she did not become well known as a singer until the early 1980s. Her paternal grandfather was of Sicilian (Italian) descent, and her paternal grandmother was a descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster. Ashley's elder sister, Wynonna, is also a country music singer. Her parents are country music singer and motivational speaker Naomi Judd and Michael Charles Ciminella, a marketing analyst for the horse racing industry. Judd was born in Granada Hills, Los Angeles.
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She starred as Rebecca Winstone in the 2012 television series Missing, for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Judd has starred in many films that have been well received as well as films that have been box office successes including: Ruby in Paradise (1993), Heat (1995), Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), A Time to Kill (1996), Kiss the Girls (1997), Double Jeopardy (1999), Where the Heart Is (2000), Frida (2002), High Crimes (2002), De-Lovely (2004), Twisted (2004), Bug (2006), Dolphin Tale (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), Divergent (2014), Dolphin Tale 2 (2014), Big Stone Gap (2014), Barry (2016) and A Dog's Way Home (2019).
Her acting career has spanned more than three decades, and she has also become increasingly involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism. She grew up in a family of performing artists: she is the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the half-sister of country music singer Wynonna Judd. Ashley Judd (born Ashley Tyler Ciminella April 19, 1968) is an American actress and political activist.