With her expressive blue eyes, soft, Southern-tinged voice and an acting range that can carry her from hysterically funny to terrifying in seconds, Patricia Arquette is one of the most underrated and talented actresses of her generation. Though she has been working for years, she's always stayed just under the radar of true stardom, despite a 1995 marriage to Nicolas Cage.

Patricia was born in Chicago, though the family soon moved to a commune near Arlington, Virginia. Her parents, Lewis Arquette, an actor, and Brenda Denaut (née Nowak), an acting teacher and therapist, had 4 other children: Rosanna Arquette, Richmond Arquette, Alexis Arquette, and David Arquette, all actors. Her paternal grandfather, Cliff Arquette, was also an entertainer. Patricia's mother was from an Ashkenazi Jewish family (from Poland and Russia), while Patricia's father had French-Canadian, Swiss-German, and English ancestry.

At 15, Patricia ran away from home to live with her sister Rosanna and, after initial insecurity, got her start in Pretty Smart (1987). A year later, she gained attention for her starring role in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), considered by many to be the best film of the Nightmare series. In 1989, Patricia's son, Enzo (father is Paul Rossi), was born. Soon after, her career took off, and she has since appeared in such critically acclaimed movies as True Romance (1993), Beyond Rangoon (1995), Ethan Frome (1993), Lost Highway (1997) and Flirting with Disaster (1996). She won a CableACE award in 1991 for her portrayal of a deaf epileptic in Wildflower (1991). In 1997, after her mother died of breast cancer, Patricia took the lead in the fight against the disease. She has run in the annual Race for the Cure and in 1999 was the Lee National Denim Day spokesperson.

Nicolas Cage (8 April 1995 - 18 May 2001)

Trivia

Daughter of Lewis Arquette and Brenda Denaut. Sister of Richmond Arquette, Alexis Arquette, David Arquette and Rosanna Arquette. Granddaughter of the late Cliff Arquette, TV character "Charley Weaver" and Julie Harrison. Aunt of Zoë Bleu Sidel (Rosanna's daughter), Coco Arquette, Charlie West & Augustus Alexis Arquette (David's children).
Former sister-in-law of Tony Greco, James Newton Howard and John Sidel. They were each married to her sister, Rosanna Arquette. Former sister-in-law of Courteney Cox.
August 2002: Became engaged to actor Thomas Jane.
Attended Mid-City Alternative school on the corner of Adams Blvd. and Arlington Avenue in the mid 1970s. Her two brothers, David Arquette and Richmond Arquette, also attended this school.
Attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies in Los Angeles, California.
Was originally cast in the Jennifer Jason Leigh role opposite her brother, Alexis Arquette, in Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989) but had to drop out because of her pregnancy.
In an interview with Magnet (June-July 1999), Tom Waits admitted that a line in "Black Market Baby" was inspired by Arquette. His wife observed of Arquette, "She's a bonsai Aphrodite". The track is found on the "Mule Variations".
Sister-in-law of Todd Morgan, Rosanna's 4th husband. Sister-in-law of Christina McLarty Arquette, David's second wife.
Married Thomas Jane at the Palazzo Contarini in Venice
Former stepmother of Nicolas Cage's son, Weston Cage Coppola.
Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.
Actress Valeria Golino was her witness at her marriage to Thomas Jane.
Her NBC-TV show Medium (2005) briefly aired in the same time slot as her sister, Rosanna Arquette's ABC-TV show What About Brian (2006).
She was born at 11:55 a.m. (EST).
Gave birth to her first child at age 20, a son Enzo Luciano Rossi (aka Enzo Rossi) on January 3, 1989. Child's father is her ex-boyfriend Paul Rossi. Gave birth to her second child at age 34, a daughter Harlow Olivia Calliope Jane (Elliott) aka Harlow Jane-Arquette on February 23, 2003. Child's father is her boyfriend [now ex-second husband], Thomas Jane.
The family surname was spelled "Arcouet" many generations back. Her father had French-Canadian, English, Swiss-German, German, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. Patricia's maternal grandfather, Yusseff "Joseph" Nowack, was a Jewish immigrant from Bila Zerkwa, Kiev, then in the Russian Empire, while Patricia's maternal grandmother, Claire Hibel, was born in New York, to Russian Jewish parents.
Filed for divorced from Thomas Jane in January 2009, citing "irreconcilable differences", but they reunited just weeks later. They split for good in August 2010.
Was set to reprise her role of Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) but was forced to decline because she became pregnant of her son Enzo Rossi.
Considered for the role of Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire (1996).
Is the first member of the Arquette family to receive (and ultimately win) an Oscar nomination.
In her Oscar acceptance speech for Boyhood (2014) she made remarks about gender inequality, which instantly went viral as the millions of people watching the telecast at home weighed in. Women's groups say that the only times they have seen more buzz around the topic of income disparity was when Lilly Ledbetter, the activist who sued Goodyear for paying her less than male counterparts, addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and 2012, and when Barack Obama took up the mantle of equal pay in State of the Union address in 2015.
Is one of 13 actresses to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance. The others in chronological order are Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich (2000), Renée Zellweger for Cold Mountain (2003), Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005), Helen Mirren for The Queen (2006), Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006), Kate Winslet for The Reader (2008), Mo'Nique for Precious (2009), Natalie Portman for Black Swan (2010), Octavia Spencer for The Help (2011), Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables (2012), Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine (2013) and Julianne Moore for Still Alice (2014).
Was the 143rd actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Boyhood (2014) at The 87th Annual Academy Awards on February 22, 2015.
Considered for the role of Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction. The role eventually went to Amanda Plummer.
Honored with Variety's Creative Impact in Cinema Award for her supporting actress role in the film Boyhood at the Texas Film Awards ceremony held on March 12, 2015 in Austin, Texas.
Co-founder of "GiveLove," an organization dedicated to community-led sanitation projects in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of 2010.
If her acting career didn't work out, her other career desire was to go to college and become a midwife.
Is one of two actresses who have won both the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (hers being for Boyhood (2014)) and the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Emmy (hers being for Medium (2005)). The other actress is Viola Davis.

Personal Quotes 

[commenting on her role as Allison DuBois in her TV series Medium (2005)] I wanted to play a woman who looks normal. It's important for me to be real.
I liked the premise of this material. I love the marriage relationship. They kind of keep each other honest, and they enjoy each other's sense of humor. Kind of a sexy but boring relationship.
Hippy people had a hopeful idea of what they wanted the world to be like, then most of them changed into corporate Yuppies. But I still have that hippy thing underneath somewhere.
You want your partner to objectify you.
We all have our own little thing, I think.
Neither of us entered marriage thinking it wouldn't be a strain. Life has strains in it, and he's the person I want to strain with.
I grew up in a hippie commune so I have a real hippie part of me.
I find that men are far more vain than women.
I don't read my reviews, but I have a bunch of them and I will when I'm 80.
I don't have a goal but I just want to work on movies that I really like.
[on her character in Boyhood shutting out her husband's abuse] Now, I wouldn't be like that. I would climb across the table and stab him in the head with a fork.
[on her vulnerable and melancholy rawness] Every man I've loved has tried to find it, fix it, soothe it.
The business has changed in every way. Back in the day, when Vivien Leigh was cast as Scarlett O'Hara, you know, she was relatively unknown, and every big star in the world wanted to do that part. Now they would just cast the biggest star. Financiers don't support their directors to cast properly. They don't have the vision of an artist, they're casting to spreadsheets and it's making movies very mediocre. The movie business used to just be called the movies. Now it should be the business movies.
[on her experience working with Heather Langenkamp] Heather was very warm and maternal to all of us even though she was basically our peer.
[on why she didn't reprise her role as Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)] They asked me to come back for 4 but at that time I was starting to break into kind of meatier roles. I had just done a movie of the week about teen pregnancy called Daddy and I was really liking getting deeper with my work. I love the horror genre and the Freddy franchise but I was chomping at the bit to try other things as an actor.
[on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)] We had a cinematographer who came in and was pretty militant and mean. He dressed like an SS officer wearing jodhpurs and shiny boots. He had a scary mustache and I remember him yelling at me where the hell did you find this girl. Thank God for the rest of the crew and the cast. They were all great.
[on her experience working with Laurence Fishburne] Laurence was already much more worldly and complicated in his thinking and talking about material. I felt in awe of him. His comfort in screen. He always seemed loose and in his body.
[as actresses turning fifty in Hollywood] It's always been the norm that that they were really ready to put you out to pasture. What's opening doors is these new streams of original content. They need material. At the same time, you have real-life crime stories that started doing well. They all lumped together at a perfect moment in my life.