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, 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.
Mara joined the cast of House of Cards, the first original series from Netflix. 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 will direct the pilot episode. Mara will star as Zoe Barnes, a reporter from Washington, D.C., alongside Robin Wright and Kristen Connolly.
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".
Read more about this topic: Kate Mara
Famous quotes containing the words television, stage and/or roles:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“She came out on the stage in yards of pearls, emerging like
a favorite scenic view, flashed her golden smile and sang.”
—Robert Earl Hayden (1913–1980)
“Modern women are squeezed between the devil and the deep blue sea, and there are no lifeboats out there in the form of public policies designed to help these women combine their roles as mothers and as workers.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)