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A porcelain-skinned, blue-eyed beauty, Vera Farmiga began her professional acting career in the mid-1990s counting among her credits performances in stage productions of “The Tempest”, “The Glass Menagerie” and “Hamlet”. Making her Broadway debut as an understudy in the 1996-1997 play “Taking Sides”, Farmiga followed up with a well-reviewed featured turn in the 1997 Off-Broadway production “Second-Hand Smoke”. That same year she was featured in the CBS “Hallmark Hall of Fame” TV-movie “Rose Hill”, and starred with then-unknown Heath Ledger on the Fox medieval adventure series “Roar”, playing female lead Catlin. A former slave turned dreadlocked battler, Farmiga’s Catlin was a fan favorite, though she would later admit embarrassment over the attention garnered for the role on the short-lived genre program. (The series did introduce her to her future husband, actor Sebastian Roache.)

1998 saw Farmiga make her big screen debut, acting in the drama “Return to Paradise”. In 2000 she played the daughters of Christopher Walken and Richard Gere in “The Opportunists” and “Autumn in New York” respectively, and made the most of her underwritten roles. 2001’s “15 Minutes” marked the actress’ breakthrough, in a part that somewhat utilized her own Eastern European background. (She was born to immigrants and raised in a Ukrainian community in New Jersey.) In the film, she played a Czech import who witnesses a crime and falls for the investigating detective (Edward Burns). Winning critical raves and audience notice for her supporting turn, Farmiga had already lined up a host of projects to continue her upward climb.

As a regular on the NBC drama “UC: Undercover” (2001- ), Farmiga finally took center stage, playing a strong-willed and crafty undercover investigator who keeps her cool in the toughest situations. Her portrayal of Alex Cross would expose the actress to a wide audience and offer her an enviable opportunity to play a featured and fully-realized female character. A supporting role in the episodic drama “Dust” (screened at the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals in 2001) put the actress back on the big screen, where she would also be featured in the independents “Dummy” (2003) and “Nine Scenes About Love” (lensed 2000).

After a supporting role in the detective thriller “15 Minutes” (2001), Farmiga played a prostitute with a disgruntled john (Domenick Lombardozzi) in the ensemble drama “Love in the Time of Money” (2002). She then starred as a working class mother struggling to keep her marriage together and raise two sons while hiding her cocaine addiction in “Down to the Bone” (2003). Farmiga won Best Actress awards from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance.

Farmiga returned to television with a regular role on “Touching Evil” (USA, 2004), a short-lived procedural based on the British series of the same name about an agent (Jeffrey Donovan) of the Organized and Serial Crime Unit who solves high profile crimes after a near-fatal injury. She then had a supporting role in “Iron Jawed Angels” (HBO, 2004), the award-winning biopic based on the true story of women’s rights activists Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor) and their struggle to earn American women the right to vote. Back in features, she had a memorable role as the daughter of a liberal senator (Jon Voight) in the remake of “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004). Farmiga was then set to be seen in “Running Scared” (2006), playing the wife of a low-level mobster (Paul Walker) trying to get back a stolen gun used in the fatal shooting of a corrupt cop.

Quick Facts

·  Has six siblings, Vera is the second oldest of seven

·  Ex-husband Sebastian Roche co-starred with Vera on “Roar” and they eloped to Bahamas to get married when the show ended in 1997

·  Toured with a folk-dancing company in her teens

·  Didn’t learn english untill she was six years old

·  Was raised in an insular Ukranian community in Passaic, New Jersey

·  Graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School: Class of 1991

·  Graduated from Syracuse University

·  Wears contact lenses

·  Got the Los Angeles Film Critics Best Actress award for “Down to the Bone” in 2005