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Mia Kirshner extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Mia Kirshner
Born	January 25, 1975 (1975-01-25) (age 35) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1989–present

Mia Kirshner (born January 25, 1975) is a Canadian actress who works in movies and television series. She is best known for her portrayal of Jenny Schecter on Showtime's hit television drama series, The L Word, a show about the lives of a group of lesbians and bisexuals living in West Hollywood, California.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Philanthropy 4 In popular culture 5 Credits 5.1 Films 5.2 Television 6 References 7 External links

Early life

Kirshner was born in Toronto, Ontario, the daughter of Etti, a teacher, and Sheldon Kirshner, a journalist who writes for The Canadian Jewish News. ¹ Kirshner is a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors; ² her father was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1946 and met Kirshner's mother, a Bulgarian Jewish refugee, in Israel. ² Kirshner had a middle class upbringing³ and studied Russian literature and 20th-century movie industry at McGill University in Montreal. Her younger sister, Lauren Kirshner, a writer, was involved in the I Live Here project.⁴

Career

In 1993, Kirshner played a dominatrix in Denys Arcand's Love and Human Remains and won a Genie nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. The following year, she starred in Atom Egoyan's Exotica. In 1996, she appeared in The Crow: City of Angels.

Kirshner also appeared in the first three episodes of 24 as the bisexual assassin Mandy in 2001. She would later reprise the role for the second season's finale and in the latter half of the show's fourth season. Also in 2001, Kirshner played Catherine Wyler, The Cruelest Girl in School, in Not Another Teen Movie. The character is primarily a spoof of Kathryn Merteuil (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Cruel Intentions, and was partially based on Mackenzie Siler (played by Anna Paquin) from She's All That. In Marilyn Manson's music video for "Tainted Love", which was featured on the movie's soundtrack, she made a cameo appearance as her character Catherine Wyler.

In 2004, Kirshner was cast as author Jenny Schecter, a main character in the drama series The L Word. She remained with the show for all of the show's six seasons through 2009.⁵

In 2006, she starred in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia in which she plays the young aspiring actress, Elizabeth Short, who was mysteriously mutilated and murdered in 1947. Kirshner will star in 30 Days of Night: Dark Days which began filming in the fall of 2009⁶ and in late December 2009 earned the role of Isobel Saltzman in The Vampire Diaries.⁷⁸

Philanthropy

In October 2008, after 7 years in production⁹, Kirshner published the book I Live Here,¹⁰ which she co-produced with ex-Adbusters staffers Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons,¹¹ as well as writer James MacKinnon. In the book, four different groups of women and children refugees from places such as Chechnya, Juárez, Burma and Malawi tell their life stories. The book features original material from well-known comic and graphic artists including Joe Sacco and Phoebe Gloeckner. It was published in the U.S. by Random House/Pantheon. It was supported logistically by Amnesty International, which will receive proceeds from the book. After the release of the book, the Center for International Studies at MIT invited Kirshner to run a 4-week course on I Live Here in January 2009. ¹²

In popular culture

Kirshner was ranked #43 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002.¹³ She and Beverly Polcyn were nominated for Best Kiss at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards for Not Another Teen Movie.¹⁴

Credits

Films Love and Human Remains (1993) - Benita Cadillac Girls (1993) - Page Exotica (1994) - Christina Murder in the First (1995) - Adult Rosetta Young The Crow: City of Angels (1996) - Sarah Anna Karenina (1997) - as Kitty Mad City (1997) - Laurie Callahan Out of the Cold (1999) - Deborah Berkowitz Saturn (Speed of Life, DVD title) (1999) - Sarah15 Dark Summer (2000) - Dominique Denright Cowboys and Angels (2000) - Candice Not Another Teen Movie (2001) - Catherine Wyler According to Spencer (2001) - Melora Century Hotel (2001) - Dominique Now and Forever (2002) - Angela Wilson New Best Friend (2002) - Alicia Campbell Party Monster (2003) - Natasha Gatien The Iris Effect (2004) - Rebecca The Black Dahlia (2006) - Elizabeth Short Miss Conception (2008) - Clem 30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010) - Lilith the Vampire Queen

Television War of the Worlds (1989) Dracula: The Series (1990) - Sophie Metternich Tropical Heat-Sweating Bullets (1991-1992) Cathy Paige Are You Afraid of the Dark: Tale of the Hungry Hounds (1992) - Pam Johnny's Girl (1995) - Amy Wolf Lake (2001) - Ruby Wilder/Ruby Cates 24 (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005) - Mandy The L Word (2005-2009) - Jenny Schecter They Come Back (2007) - Faith Hardy The Cleaner (2009) - April May CSI:NY (2009) - Deborah Carter The Vampire Diaries (2010) - Isobel Saltzman

References

External links

• Mia Kirshner at the Internet Movie Database