Possessing both real acting talent and natural beauty coupled with strong performances she is consistently capable to deliver of, Virginia Madsen sure is one of the fine female movie stars Hollywood ever has although she had to wait for more than twenty years of her career to attain the accolade she deserves. A native of Chicago, Illinois who was born on September 11, 1961 to Cal and Elaine Madsen, Virginia had been familiar with film industry from a very young age since her mother underwent a profession as a TV producer besides being a writer also a poet. Started to be involved in acting during her study at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, the teen continued to polish her skills at Chicago's Ted Liss Acting Studio and the Harand Camp Adult Theater Seminar in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, before finally fixed her mind to become an actress.

Accompanied by her boyfriend, Bill Campbell, who also shared the same desire, Virginia then left her hometown to head for Hollywood, Los Angeles, looking for a good opportunity to begin her career. Within a short time, she made her way to earn a minor role in "Class" (1983), followed by appearances in "Electric Dreams" and "Dune" which both came up in 1984. Her name came up to the surface when she managed to gain wide-range audience's notice in "Fire with Fire" (1986), consequently led her to gain more roles either in big or small screen productions, most notably the recurring part in ABC's popular series of "Moonlighting" (1985-1989) by 1989. Sadly, her relationship with Campbell, on the other hand, encountered its end in the same year yet she quickly found another man, Danny Huston, whom she eventually married shortly thereafter.

Marked the beginning of 1990s with an enactment opposite Don Johnson in Dennis Hopper's cult classic "The Hot Spot" (1990), Virginia delightfully obtained larger attention afterwards as her 1992 film feature, "Candyman", surprisingly collected more than $25 million to be a box-office hit in that year. In the meantime, she began to flourish a new love for actor Antonio Sabato Jr. following her divorce with Huston, but it unfortunately did not last long enough to proceed to the marriage altar though the couple already had a son together named Jack on August 6, 1994. Kept moving on, this blonde beauty continued her career quite steadily and acquired moderate success through "The Prophecy" (1995) also "The Rainmaker" (1997) yet the wide recognition she had aimed for dismally was still beyond her reach until the end of the decade.

After a series of performances on screen, Virginia ultimately achieved what she had waited for a long time when joined Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, and Sandra Oh to film Alexander Payne's "Sideways" (2004). Not only commercially successful, this compelling picture also received huge praise along with the acclaim for its cast from both critics and audience, subsequently led her to garner three prestigious award nominations of Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Screen Actor Guild Awards in 2005. The brilliant attainment she had scored unmistakably boosted her career a few notches higher, furthermore smoothened her way to play in more high-profile films for she later was billed opposite Harrison Ford in "Firewall" then played in star-studded "A Prairie Home Companion", both released in 2006.

Coming to year 2007, Virginia took time to play roles in titles like "The Astronaut Farmer" and "The Number 23", which saw her appear alongside Jim Carrey. The latter sadly flopped on the box office despite its starry cast, but the gloom result appeared to bring no effect on her next move as she continued to add seemingly potential big screen projects for 2008. One was a horror thriller titled "The Haunting in Connecticut" under the direction of Peter Cornwell while the other was drama comedy "Diminished Capacity" that Matthew Broderick and Alan Alda also starred in.