Kate Mara - Film Career

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 which 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 starring Mark Wahlberg lured out of retirement to prevent an assassination. Mara played a Kentucky widow, Sarah Fenn, adopting a southern dialect 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 Cox. 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 appeared in the survival drama 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle, playing a hiker, a true story 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. As of May 2011, Mara was shooting Deadfall in Montreal.