Wes Bentley

Wes Bentley is an actor known for his breakout role as Ricky Fitts in American Beauty (1999), which earned him a BAFTA nomination. Born into a religious family — his mother is a chaplain and his father is a minister in the United Methodist Church — Bentley attended the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City for one year before pursuing acting full-time.

His early roles included Serendipity Lane (1995), followed by Soul Survivors (2001) and The Four Feathers (2002). Bentley struggled with substance abuse in the 2000s, which he openly discussed in a 2010 interview with The New York Times. After taking a break from acting, he made a return with The Hunger Games (2012) as Seneca Crane. He later appeared in Pete’s Dragon (2016), Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) and The Best of Enemies (2019).

Bentley also made notable appearances on television, including in American Horror Story (2014-2017) and Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021-2022). In 2018, he was cast as Jamie Dutton in the hit Paramount+ series Yellowstone. The drama premiered in June 2018, and the final episodes started airing in November 2024.

Bentley married actress Jennifer Quanz in 2001, but they divorced in 2009 amid his struggles with drug abuse. (He declared in a 2023 interview that he has been sober since July 5, 2009.) In 2010, he married producer Jacqui Swedberg, and they have two children: son Charles (born 2010) and daughter Brooklyn (born 2014).