Mia Kirshner

Mia Kirshner plays the mercenary Mandy on 24.

Biography
She is a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Her father, Sheldon, a journalist for The Canadian Jewish News, was born in a displaced person camp in Germany in 1946. He met her mother, Etti, a Bulgarian Jewish refugee, in Israel. Kirshner has a younger sister.

In 1993 she played a dominatrix in Denys Arcand's movie Love and Human Remains. She won a Genie nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. The year after she starred in Atom Egoyan's Exotica yet another time showing her talents as an actress. Her performance in Exotica won her a Cannes Critics Choice Award.

She is also a main cast member of Showtime series The L Word, where she plays Jennifer Schecter, a sexually confused fiction writer.

Mia Kirshner studied Russian literature and 20th century movie industry at McGill University in Montreal.

In 2006, Kirshner will star in the third season of The L Word as Jenny Schecter. She will also star in Brian De Palma's upcoming movie The Black Dahlia, alongside Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank. Kirshner will be playing the young actress Elizabeth Short, who was horrifically murdered in 1947.

She is also working on the book I Live Here. In the book, woman and children refugees, from dangerous places such as Chechnya, Juarez (Mexico) and Africa will tell their disturbing life stories. It will be published in Canada in 2006.

Trivia

 * While filming for Day 4, Carlos Bernard set up a practical joke where he had his cop friends arrest Kirshner for smoking marijuana on the set. His friends took the joke too far, and Kirshner was unable to continue her scenes with Bernard. Kiefer Sutherland commented that the director of the episode was reportedly very upset.

Filmography

 * The L Word (2004)
 * Party Monster (2003)
 * Now and Forever (2002)
 * New Best Friend (2002)
 * Century Hotel (2001)
 * Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
 * Wolf Lake (2001)
 * Mad City (1997)
 * Anna Karenina (1997)
 * The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
 * Murder in the First (1995)
 * Exotica (1994)
 * Love and Human Remains (1993)
 * Dracula: The Series (1990)