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Kate Mara Kate Mara is an American television, stage
and film actress. She starred in House of Cards as Zoe Barnes and appeared in 24 as
computer analyst Shari Rothenberg. She made her film debut in 1999 with Random Hearts.
She appeared in Brokeback Mountain , We Are Marshall , Shooter , Transsiberian , Stone
of Destiny and The Open Road . She also appeared in the horror mini-series American Horror
Story: *** House as Hayden McClaine. Kate is the older sister of actress Rooney
Mara. Early life
Mara was born and raised in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, to Timothy Christopher Mara,
a scout and the vice president of player evaluation for the New York Giants and Kathleen McNulty
Mara (née Rooney). Her sister, Rooney Mara, is also an actress.
Mara's father has Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry, and her mother is of Irish and Italian
descent. Her paternal grandfather, Wellington Mara, was the long-time co-owner of the Giants,
succeeded by her uncle, John Mara. Her maternal grandfather, Timothy James "Tim" Rooney, has
run Yonkers Raceway in Yonkers, New York since 1972. She is a great-granddaughter of both
New York Giants founder Tim Mara and Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, Sr. Her great-uncle,
Dan Rooney, is chairman of the Steelers, was the United States Ambassador to Ireland and
the co-founder of The Ireland Funds charitable organization. An uncle, Art Rooney II, is
the current President and co-owner of the Steelers. She has three siblings: Daniel,
(Patricia) Rooney (also an actress), and Conor. Mara began acting at the age of nine in a
school musical, attended several youth theater-arts schools and appeared in community theater
and in school plays. Mara described herself to Esquire magazine as "painfully shy" while
growing up and said she only had one friend. Her first audition was for the television
drama Homicide: Life on the Street. She did not get the role, but knew from then on that
she just wanted to act. Mara was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts at New York
University to study musical theater and graduated from Fox Lane High School a year early. She
was getting work as an actress, so she deferred college before deciding not to go.
Television and stage roles Her first television role was in the drama
Law & Order in 1997. She went on to guest star on numerous television series, including
Madigan Men, Ed and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Mara landed two recurring roles in 2003,
as Kate on Everwood, an 18-year-old who is impregnated by her piano teacher and then
gets an abortion and as Vanessa on Nip/Tuck, a bisexual cheerleader involved in a love
triangle with her boyfriend Matt McNamara (John Hensley) and another cheerleader (Sophia
Bush). Mara also appeared on Cold Case, Boston Public, CSI: Miami and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
that same year. Mara was cast as the lead in the 2004 WB pilot
Prodigy, about a teenage child prodigy. She had a recurring role on the WB's Jack & Bobby
in 2005 and a 5 episode arc on the Fox series 24 in 2006, playing computer analyst Shari
Rothenberg. Mara joined the cast of the HBO series Entourage for the series' sixth season
in 2009. She played Brittany, Eric "E" Murphy (Kevin Connolly)'s assistant at his talent-management
company and a potential love interest. Mara filmed four episodes for the series in 2009.
In 2011, she guest starred on the FX television series, American Horror Story, as Hayden McClaine,
a student who becomes Dr. Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott)'s dead mistress, a spirit trapped
in the Harmon house. Mara was offered the role by Ryan Murphy, her former producer on
Nip/Tuck. In 2012, Mara joined the cast of the original
Netflix series, House of Cards. The political drama stars Kevin Spacey and is based on a
novel by Michael Dobbs and the 1990 British television series, House of Cards. David Fincher
directed the pilot episode. Mara stars as Zoe Barnes, a reporter from Washington, D.C..
She filmed a second season of the series, which will be released in 2014.
She made her stage debut in 2003 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in John Guare’s Landscape
of the Body with Lili Taylor. Mara starred in The Alice Complex, a play by Peter Barr
Nickowitz, at Dixon Place in New York City in 2005 and at the Blank Theatre in Los Angeles
in 2006. The production co-starred Tony Award-winner Harriet Harris. She later told WFAN radio
in 2006 that doing more theater work is a "dream" because it was "all I really wanted
to do as a kid. I didn't care about movies or TV, I just wanted to do Broadway".
Film career Mara's film debut was in Random Hearts, with
Harrison Ford in 1999, directed by Sydney Pollack. She played Jessica Chandler, the
daughter of a congresswoman (Kristin Scott Thomas). She next appeared in the Sundance
Film Festival award-winning films Joe the King (1999) and Tadpole (2002), alongside
Sigourney Weaver. Mara co-starred in Peoples (2004), a drama and coming of age story filmed
in Louisville, Kentucky. She starred in the direct-to-video horror film Urban Legends:
Bloody Mary and appeared with Noah Wyle and Illeana Douglas in The Californians in 2005.
Her supporting role as the daughter of Heath Ledger's character in the Academy Award-winning
Brokeback Mountain that year brought her more widespread critical notice.
Mara signed with the William Morris Agency, and was included on the New York Daily News
list of "10 young actors who have a shot at making it big" at the start of 2006. She appeared
in Zoom that year as Summer Jones (aka Wonder), a 16-year-old girl with telekinetic and empathic
abilities. She next appeared in We Are Marshall, starring Matthew McConaughey, which recalled
the aftermath of the 1970 Marshall University plane crash that took the lives of most of
the football team. Mara played cheerleader Annie Cantrell.
In 2007, she appeared in the comedy Full of It with Ryan Pinkston for New Line Cinema.
The film later aired on television as Big Liar on Campus. Mara was also featured in
an advertising campaign for clothing retailer Gap called, "khakis with attitude." She appeared
in Shooter, a thriller about a master sniper portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, lured out of retirement
to prevent an assassination. Mara played a Kentucky widow, Sarah Fenn, adopting a southern
accent for the role. In 2007, she finished her work in the film
Transsiberian by Brad Anderson, which takes place on the Trans-Siberian Railway that runs
from China to Moscow. She spent three months shooting the thriller in Vilnius, Lithuania,
starting in December 2006. The film also shot on location in Beijing and Russia. Mara played
Abby, a 20-year-old runaway from Seattle. Transsiberian premiered at the 2008 Sundance
Film Festival in January 2008. Mara starred in the 2008 film Stone of Destiny,
written and directed by Charles Martin Smith, about the theft of the Stone of Scone on Christmas
Day, 1950. Mara played Kay Matheson, one of four students that removed the stone in a
Scottish nationalist plot. The period adventure-comedy co-starred Billy Boyd, Robert Carlyle and
Charlie ***. Filming began in June 2007 in locations around Glasgow. She employed a Scottish
accent for the role, which she found very difficult to master. Mara felt lucky and proud
to play a role that was important to people's heritage. She stayed near the Botanic Gardens
in the city's West End while filming, attending the film premiere at the Edinburgh International
Film Festival on June 21, 2008. The film closed the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival
on September 13, 2008. In December 2008, Mara appeared in T Takes:
Brooklyn 09, a series of 6 improvised short films directed by Brody Baker. She starred
in The Open Road as Lucy. Filming began in Hammond, Louisiana in February 2008, and continued
in Memphis, Tennessee and elsewhere in the South.
In 2009, Mara filmed the independent comedy Peep World, starring Michael C. Hall, Sarah
Silverman and Rainn Wilson, and joined the cast of Marvel's Iron Man 2, making a cameo
appearance as a U.S. marshal. Mara shot the ensemble romantic comedy happythankyoumoreplease
in New York City in July 2009. She plays a waitress and aspiring singer named Mississippi,
in a story about six single New Yorkers in their 20s. The film was written and directed
by actor Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother). The film won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award
at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. In 2010, Mara played a hiker in the survival drama
127 Hours, a true story directed by Danny Boyle about Aron Ralston, a climber trapped
while mountaineering in Utah. Mara appeared in Ironclad (2011), which tells
the story of the siege of Rochester Castle by King John in the year 1215. It is her first
film where she speaks in an English accent. Mara appeared in the short film Ten Year,
produced by Channing Tatum to attract financing for a feature film. The full-length feature
went into production in Albuquerque in January 2010, with Mara starring in a large ensemble
cast film about a 10-year high school reunion. In 2012, Mara starred in Stefan Ruzowitzky's
thriller Deadfall with Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde. In March 2013, Mara has been announced
to appear with Johnny Depp in Transcendence directed by Wally Pfister.
Personal life Mara has stated she comes from a "huge" family.
Her father is one of 11 children. She has 22 aunts and uncles and 40 cousins.
She has been dating actor Max Minghella since 2010. Mara credits her vegan diet and regular
workouts for keeping herself fit. NFL ties
As a descendant of the Giants' Tim and Wellington Mara as well as the Steelers' Art Rooney,
she is a fan of both teams and the relationship contributed to her being cast in We Are Marshall.
Mara has sung at both teams' games and, after missing the Steelers' victory at Super Bowl
XL due to work, her contracts state that if either team goes to the Super Bowl, she can
attend. She was in attendance for the Giants' victory in Super Bowl XLII, for the Steelers'
victory the next year in Super Bowl XLIII and for the Giants' victory in Super Bowl
XLVI. Filmography
Television