Patricia Arquette

The following year included a starring role in John Boorman's Beyond Rangoon and a marriage to actor Nicolas Cage. In 1996, Arquette had lead roles in a number of films, most notably David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster, in which she played Ben Stiller's put-upon wife. She then switched gears with starring roles in David Lynch's Lost Highway and the thriller Nightwatch. She tried her hand at a Western in 1998, playing the object of Woody Harrelson's and Billy Crudup's desires in Stephen Frears' The Hi-Lo Country. Despite an interesting premise and excellent cast, the film flopped, but Arquette continued to work steadily the following year, with lead roles in the black comedy Goodbye Lover; Stigmata, in which she starred opposite Gabriel Byrne as the unwitting target of a supernatural phenomenon; and Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead, a film starring Arquette's then-husband Cage as a burnt-out paramedic.

Following the weightiness of the creepy Stigmata and the disturbing Bringing Out the Dead, Arquette took things in a decidedly lighter direction with her next two projects. In 2000, she played Adam Sandler's love-interest in the comedy Little Nicky, while the following year found her opposite Tim Robbins in the off-the-wall Human Nature. Written by Being John Malkovich scribe Charlie Kaufman, Human Nature was the feature debut from acclaimed music-video director Michel Gondry and featured Arquette as a woman cursed with a coat of fur covering her body.

As the decade progressed, audiences could see Arquette in projects ranging from the star-studded documentary Searching for Debra Winger to the sleeper family film Holes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide