What Is Jena Malone's Net Worth?
Jena Malone is an American actress, producer, and musician who has a net worth of $4 million. Jena Malone won a Young Artist Award for her film debut, 1996's "Bastard Out of Carolina," and she earned a Golden Globe nomination for the 1997 TV movie "Hope." Jena has more than 70 acting credits to her name, including the films "Stepmom" (1998), "For Love of the Game" (1999), "Donnie Darko" (2001), "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" (2002), "Saved!" (2004), "Pride & Prejudice" (2005), "Into the Wild" (2007), "The Ruins" (2008), "Inherent Vice" (2014), and "The Neon Demon" (2016), the miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys" (2012), "Dakota" (2012), and "Too Old to Die Young" (2019), and the television series "Goliath" (2021). Malone also played Johanna Mason in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" (2013), "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" (2014), and "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" (2015), and she appeared on Broadway in a 2006 production of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt." Jena co-produced the 2002 film "American Girl," and she served as an executive producer on the films "Lorelei" (2020) and "Adopting Audrey" (2021). Malone is an experimental musician who has released music both under her own name and as The Shoe, and in 2007, she released the single "The Social Registry" with Jena Malone and the Bloodstains.
Early Life
Jena Malone was born Jena Laine Malone on November 21, 1984, in Sparks, Nevada. According to Jena, her mother, Deborah Malone, got pregnant with her after a one-night stand with Edward Berge, who was married at the time. Malone was raised by Deborah and her girlfriend, and she told "The Daily Beast" in 2014, "They were lovers. I had two moms, and it was awesome. Double the pleasure! The more love you have as a child, the better." Though Jena was estranged from her father during her youth, she reconciled with him as an adult. Malone's family moved frequently during her childhood, living in nearly 30 locations by the time she turned 9, and they were sometimes homeless. In her 2014 "Daily Beast" interview, Jena stated, "We were just so poor. We'd hop out of apartments, lose jobs, find a cheaper place, get kicked out, live in cars, and live in hotels." Malone's mother was an actress, and Jena became interested in acting while she watched Deborah perform in local stage productions. The family moved to Las Vegas in 1995, and Malone enrolled in acting classes and eventually convinced Deborah that they should move to Los Angeles. Jena was home-schooled during her middle school years, and in ninth grade, she began attending New York City's Professional Children's School. In 1999, she dropped out of high school, and she got her GED two years later. Malone has a younger half-sister, Madison, on her mother's side.
Career
In 1995, Jena appeared in Michael Jackson's "Childhood" music video, and she received critical acclaim for her performance as Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright in the 1996 film "Bastard Out of Carolina." She guest-starred on "Chicago Hope" (1996), "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1998), and "Touched by an Angel" (1999), and she appeared in the 1997 TV movies "Hope" and "Ellen Foster." Malone co-starred with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey in 1997's "Contact" and with Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, and Ed Harris in 1998's "Stepmom," and she won a Saturn Award for "Contact" and a Young Artist Award and YoungStar Award for "Stepmom." In 1999, Jena appeared in "For Love of the Game" (1999) alongside Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston, and she followed it with the films "Donnie Darko" (2001), "Life as a House" (2001), "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" (2002), "The Badge" (2002), "American Girl" (2002), "The United States of Leland" (2003), and "Cold Mountain" (2003) and the TV movies "Cheaters" (2000) and "The Ballad of Lucy Whipple" (2001).
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Malone portrayed Adolf Hitler's half-niece, Geli Raubal, in the 2003 Canadian miniseries "Hitler: The Rise of Evil," which earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Miniseries. In 2004, Jena voiced Lettie in the English dub of the Japanese animated film "Howl's Moving Castle," and she starred as a pregnant teenager in the indie comedy "Saved!" alongside Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, and Mary-Louise Parker. She appeared in the films "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" (2005), "Lying" (2006), "Four Last Songs" (2007), "The Go-Getter" (2007), "The Ruins" (2008), "The Messenger" (2009), and "The Soloist" (2009), and she played Lydia Bennet in 2005's "Pride & Prejudice." She guest-starred on "Law & Order" in 2008, and she reunited with Kevin Costner in the 2012 History channel miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys." Malone played Rocket in the 2011 Zack Snyder-directed fantasy action film "Sucker Punch," then she starred in "For Ellen" (2012), "In Our Nature" (2012), "The Wait" (2013), "Time Out of Mind" (2014), "Angelica" (2015), "The Neon Demon" (2016), "Nocturnal Animals" (2016), "Bottom of the World" (2017), and "The Public" (2018).
Jena played Johanna Mason in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" (2013), "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" (2014), and "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" (2015), which grossed a combined $2.278 billion at the box office, and she co-starred with Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, and Martin Short in 2014's "Inherent Vice." In 2019, she starred in the miniseries "Too Old to Die Young," and in 2021, she played Samantha Margolis on the Amazon Prime Video series "Goliath." Malone appeared in the films "Lorelei" (2020), "Antebellum" (2020), and "Adopting Audrey" (2021), and she portrayed Angie Bowie, David Bowie's first wife, in the 2020 biopic "Stardust."
Personal Life
In 2000, 15-year-old Jena became legally emancipated from her mother, who she said "squandered" the earnings from Malone's acting jobs through "excessive spending and mismanagement." At the age of 19, Jena bought a home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Malone became engaged to photographer Ethan DeLorenzo in August 2016, but they split up in February 2019. Jena and Ethan welcomed son Ode Mountain DeLorenzo Malone in May 2016. In 2019, Malone began a relationship with musician Alex Ebert. While driving through Hollywood in April 2022, Jena witnessed a man abusing a small dog, and she jumped out of her car and chased him. Soon five men joined her in pursuit of the animal abuser, and the men beat him and subdued him until the police showed up to arrest him. The man had taken the 6-year-old maltipoo, Champ, from his mother, without her permission, and Malone waited with Champ until the injured dog was taken to a hospital to be treated for broken ribs and a broken leg. Jena said of the situation, "I'm sorry that it ended in a brawl but the dog was going to die. No question."
In August 2022, Malone revealed that she is polyamorous and pansexual, writing on Instagram, "I guess It felt like I was a heterosexual man in a woman's body. I visualized his desires and placed them on to me. But this was never the whole of the story that was meant for me. So I've been learning a new way to tell it. Using words to guide me not define me. That my sexual identity has more to teach and to tell me. Finding words that feel more right to explore in my telling. Pansexuality. Sapiosexuality. Polyamory. A fuller spectrum of understanding that my story is demanding of me."
Awards and Nominations
In 1998, Malone received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television for "Hope." She earned four Young Artist Award nominations, winning for Best Performance in a TV Movie/Mini-Series – Young Actress for "Bastard Out of Carolina" (1997), Best Performance in a TV Movie/Pilot/Mini-Series – Leading Young Actress for "Ellen Foster" (1998), and Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress for "Stepmom" (1999). Her other nomination was for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actress for "For Love of the Game" (2000). Jena also received YoungStar Award nominations for "Bastard Out of Carolina," "Stepmom," and "For Love of the Game," winning for "Stepmom," and she earned a nomination for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Miniseries/Made-for-TV Movie for "Hope" (1998) as well. Malone has received two Saturn Award nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, taking home the prize for Best Performance by a Younger Actor/Actress for "Contact" in 1998. She also earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" in 2014.
For "The Neon Demon," Malone won Best Supporting Actress awards from the BloodGuts UK Horror Awards, "Fangoria" Chainsaw Awards, and Film Club's The Lost Weekend and received nominations from the Blogos de Oro, Fright Meter Awards, and International Online Cinema Awards. She earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance for "Bastard Out of Carolina" in 1997, and in 2015, "Inherent Vice" won the Robert Altman Award. In 2001, Jena won a DVD Exclusive Award for Best Supporting Actress for "The Book of Stars," and she received an Imagery Honors award at the 2004 Sonoma Valley Film Festival. She earned a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie: Scene Stealer for "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" in 2016, and in 2022, she was named Best Supporting Actress for "Swallowed" at FilmOut San Diego. Malone has also received nominations from the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards ("Stepmom" and "For Love of the Game"), CableACE Awards ("Bastard Out of Carolina"), Golden Schmoes Awards ("Sucker Punch"), Kids' Choice Awards ("The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), Satellite Awards ("Hidden in America" and "Saved!"), and Screen Actors Guild Awards ("Bastard Out of Carolina"), and the "Into the Wild" cast earned Best Ensemble nominations from the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Gold Derby Awards.
