Mena Suvari

Mena Adrienne Suvari (born February 13, 1979) is an American actress, model, designer and spokeswoman. She is perhaps best known for her work in American Beauty (1999) and the first two American Pie films.

Suvari was born in Newport, Rhode Island to Ando Süvari, an Estonian psychiatrist, and Candice, a Greek American nurse. By the age of twelve, Suvari was modeling; she starred in a Rice-a-Roni commercial by the age of thirteen. Attended Providence High School, in Los Angeles, California, class of 1997.

Suvari spent her early years in an old stone mansion that she insists was haunted. Their home was built in 1870 and which she and her brothers believed was haunted. They saw several apparitions over the years, all of which she believed were friendly. The family later relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, where her three older brothers lined up to attend the Citadel (a military college). Mena, meanwhile, was entertaining dreams of becoming an archaeologist, astronaut, or doctor. When a modeling agency stopped by her all-girls school to offer classes. At age 12, after receiving a few pointers on her runway strut, Suvari attended a modeling convention and was snapped up by the New York-based Wilhelmina agency.

Suvari made appearances in television shows such as Boy Meets World and ER at the age of fifteen and sixteen respectively. In 1999, Suvari starred in the Oscar winning American Beauty and the popular American Pie. Suvari was nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for: American Beauty. She has been nominated 3 times and she has won also 3 times.

She followed these movies with roles in such movies as Loser (2000), The Musketeer (2001), and Spun (2002). Suvari is the only actress to appear in three consecutive movies that start with the word "American": American Pie (1999), American Beauty (1999), American Virgin (2000). Suvari also became a recurring character in the fourth season of the critically acclaimed HBO serial Six Feet Under in 2004, as lesbian performance poet and artist, Edie. Suvari was nominated for a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress - Newcomer (Internet Only) in 2000 for American Pie.

In 2006, she took the voice role of Aerith Gainsborough in the Square Enix/Disney video game Kingdom Hearts II, as well as the English-language version of Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. She has lead roles in the upcoming remake of the zombie movie Day of the Dead as well as Stuart Gordon's controversial film Stuck.

In early August 2007 the first pictures of Suvari as a bald were published in many gossip websites. Suvari’s representative has revealed the actress shaved off her locks in June while she was shooting a movie adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s Garden of Eden in Spain. In the film, the actress plays a beautiful bored newlywed who falls for a sultry Italian girl while she is honeymooning in Europe. She has a lead role in the film. Suvari says she fulfilled a long-standing ambition by losing her hair. She explained: “I was really excited to get to shave my head - it’s something I’d wanted to do for a while and now I had a good excuse. It was nice to shed that level of vanity for a girl.”

Suvari married German-born cinematographer Robert Brinkmann on March 18, 2000. The marriage was notable as Brinkmann is 18 years older than Suvari. However, Suvari filed for legal separation from Brinkmann on April 24, 2005, citing irreconcilable differences. The two divorced in May of the same year. In summer 2005, she began dating professional breakdancer Mike "Murda" Carrasco. Mike Carrasco is a member of Knuckle Head Zoo. They met in October 2005 in Braunschweig, Germany.

She is quoted on her website as saying, "I really like most styles of music. I am very much into hip-hop, soul, funk, and especially reggae, and really, there are too many artists to mention, but I like a lot of old school music."

Suvari also plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the Starlight Children's Foundation charity.

Her hobbies include: jewelry making, photography, mountain biking, and hiking. In January 2007 Suvari was spotted working at a trendy Melrose boutique. It was so busy at the boutique that she wound up waiting until closing time -- and helped the staff put away all the displayed jewelry.

-- Wikipedia.org