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Robin Gayle Wright (born April 8, 1966) is an American actress, film producer and film director. She has received accolades including a Golden Globe Award, and nominations for eight Primetime Emmy Awards.
Wright first gained attention for her role as Kelly Capwell in the NBC Daytime soap opera Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1988. She transitioned to film with a starring role in the fantasy film The Princess Bride (1987), and gained a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the top-grossing drama Forrest Gump (1994). Wright had further starring roles in the romantic drama Message in a Bottle (1999) as well as the thriller Unbreakable (2000), and gained praise for her performances in the independent films Loved (1997), She's So Lovely (1997), Nine Lives (2005) and Sorry, Haters (2006). She has since taken on supporting roles in the sports drama Moneyball (2011), the thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), the adventure film Everest (2015), the superhero film Wonder Woman (2017), and the science fiction film Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
On television, Wright starred in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls in 2005. From 2013 to 2018, she starred as Claire Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. Her performance earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and six nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. In 2016, Wright was named one of the highest-paid actresses in the United States, earning US$420,000 per episode for House of Cards. She has also directed ten episodes of the series as well as two episodes of the Netflix crime series Ozark in 2022.
She grew up in Southern California, attending La Jolla High School in La Jolla and William Howard Taft Charter High School in Los Angeles.
Wright starred in a leading role of the film adaptation of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1996), for which she received a Satellite Awards nomination for Best Actress in a Drama. She was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress for her role in She's So Lovely (1997), a film in which she co-starred with her then-husband Sean Penn. Wright starred with Kevin Costner in Luis Mandoki's film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel Message in a Bottle. She received her third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her role in the television film Empire Falls (2005).
Following Season 4 in 2016, Wright stated that she felt Claire Underwood was the equal of Frank Underwood and demanded equal pay for her performance as her co-star Kevin Spacey. Netflix acquiesced. In 2017, for her performance in the fifth season, Wright was nominated for her fifth consecutive Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. In 2014, 2016, and 2017, Wright received Best Actress in a Drama Series nominations for the Critics' Choice Television Awards, with hers being the only nomination for the show in December 2017.
In October 2017, she was the show's new lead for the final season, following the firing of Kevin Spacey due to sexual misconduct allegations. For her last appearance as Underwood, her performance was acclaimed - described as a "commanding performance that is more than enough to keep the standing strong" - earning her final nominations for the role at the Screen Actors Guild and Primetime Emmy Awards in 2019. For the latter, she became one of seven women to be nominated for the category six or more times for the same show, the first in 10 years since Mariska Hargitay for .
Her feature film directorial debut in the film Land was announced in April 2019. Wright starred as its lead, Edee Mathis, a lawyer who retreats in grief to the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. Sales for the film start at Cannes in May 2019. Filming began in October 2019 and the film was picked up by distributor Focus Features.
Land premiered in January 2021 at the Sundance Film Festival to generally positive reviews, with specific praise towards the direction and the performances. Peter Debruge in a review for Variety wrote: "So bless Wright for paring “Land” down to a beautiful haiku, and for delivering a performance that's ambiguous and understated in all the right ways," and "in a directorial debut so pure and simple it speaks to enormous self-confidence, has better instincts than to reveal outright."
In 2022, Wright directed the final two episodes of the first part of season 4 of the Netflix show, Ozark. The episodes were titled: "Sangre Sobre Todo" and "Sanctified". Kayla Cobb for Decider praised Wright's direction in the latter episode as "powerful" with the pairing of her direction, the script and actress Julia Garner's performance as a "masterful collaboration."
In 2023, Wright starred in and produced Ben Young's thriller Devil's Peak, an adaptation of the book Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy.
In 2024, Wright starred in the Netflix fantasy film Damsel directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and co-starring Millie Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the film was a commercial hit, receiving 143 million views and becoming the most viewed movie on the streaming platform in the first half of 2024. Later that year, Wright starred in a Sony Pictures Classics and Miramax adaptation of Richard McGuire's Here in a Forrest Gump reteam with director Robert Zemeckis, actor Tom Hanks and writer Eric Roth.
In 2025, Wright received critical acclaim for her directorial and acting work in The Girlfriend, a limited series centered around a power struggle between a mother and her son's girlfriend (played by Olivia Cooke). Proma Khosla for IndieWire wrote: "Wright hits the exact right note of desperate determination ... she lets loose with an unhinged turn that will guarantee viewers stay through the end." Wright received Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award nominations for her performance.
In 1989, Wright became involved with actor Sean Penn following his divorce from Madonna. Wright was offered the role of Maid Marian in the film , but turned it down because she was pregnant. Their daughter, Dylan Penn, was born in April 1991. She backed out of the role of Abby McDeere in The Firm (1993) due to her pregnancy with her second child. Their son, Hopper Penn, was born in August 1993.
After breaking up and getting back together, Wright and Penn married in 1996. Their on-and-off relationship seemingly ended in divorce plans, announced in December 2007. The divorce petition was withdrawn four months later at the couple's request. In February 2009, Wright and Penn attended the 81st Academy Awards together, at which Penn won the Best Actor award. Penn filed for legal separation in April 2009, but withdrew the petition in May. In August 2009, Wright filed for divorce, declaring she had no plans to reconcile. The divorce was finalized in July 2010.
In February 2012, Wright began dating actor Ben Foster. Their engagement was announced in January 2014. The couple called off their engagement in November 2014, but reunited in January 2015. In August 2015, they announced they were ending their second engagement.
In 2017, Wright began dating Clément Giraudet, an Yves Saint Laurent executive. They secretly wed in August 2018 in La Roche-sur-le-Buis, France. Wright filed for divorce from Giraudet in September 2022.
Robin is currently dating British-Australian architect Henry Smith. The couple moved to England, and Wright described Smith as "a sweet guy and a decent, good adult." Although she is happy in the relationship, the actress considers marrying again unnecessary.
In 2014, she co-partnered with two California-based companies: Pour Les Femmes and The SunnyLion. The SunnyLion donates a portion of its profits to the Raise Hope For Congo movement.
Wright is an activist for human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She is the narrator and executive producer of the documentary When Elephants Fight, which highlights how multinational mining corporations and politicians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo threaten human rights, and perpetuate conflict in the region.
She is a supporter of Stand with Congo, the human rights campaign behind the film. In 2016, Wright spoke publicly in support of the campaign at a film-screening at the Tribeca Film Institute in New York City, in media interviews, with journalists, and across her social media accounts.
| starts being credited as Robin Wright Penn | |
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| Voice and motion-capture roles, credited as Robin Wright-Penn | |
| Voice and motion-capture roles, last credit as Robin Wright Penn | |
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| 538 episodes | |||
| Miniseries, only television credit as Robin Wright Penn | |||
| 1 episode | |||
| Main role; executive producer (seasons 4–6) and director (10 episodes) | |||
| 6 episodes; Voice role | |||
| Director only; episodes: "Sangre Sobre Todo" and "Sanctified" | |||
| 2025 | The Girlfriend | Laura Sanderson | Main role; executive producer (6 episodes) and director (3 episodes) |
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