Sarah Clarke | |
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Born: | Sarah Lively Clarke February 16, 1972 St. Louis, Missouri, USA |
Spouse(s): | Xander Berkeley |
Role: | Nina Myers |
- "It was like an end of an era to see the show end. When I went to the finale party it was great to see so much of the crew that was still involved. The fact they they were able to keep it such a viable show for eight seasons is great. We didn’t think it was going to get past season two."
- — Sarah Clarke on the finale to 24 in 2010
Sarah Lively Clarke (born February 16, 1972; age 52) played Nina Myers on 24 and voiced the same character in 24: The Game. She won the Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Drama in 2003. She, along with Kiefer Sutherland and Cherry Jones, are the only actors to have won awards for their work on 24.
Biography[]
Sarah Clarke was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a homemaker mother and an engineer father. She attended John Burroughs School in her hometown, and then Indiana University where she studied Fine Arts and Italian. While a student at IU, Clarke became a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She was initiated into the Beta chapter in 1990.
Clarke became interested in acting while studying abroad during her senior year in Bologna, Italy. Upon returning to the United States, she began acting in the theatre while working as an architectural photographer. She received free acting lessons in return for taking photographs of a cultural arts center, and she studied acting at Circle in the Square Theatre School, Axis Theater Company, and The Willow Cabin Theatre Company.
Clarke began her professional acting career in 2000. In her first short film, Pas de deux, she won an Outstanding Performance Award at the Brooklyn Film Festival. The next year, she got the role of Nina Myers on 24. In 2008, Clarke starred in Twilight with Billy Burke, Jose Zuniga, and Ned Bellamy, and had cameos in the sequels Eclipse and Breaking Dawn: Part 1. She also starred in A House Divided with Nestor Serrano.
On television, she has starred in Trust Me (with Greg Ellis), Commander In Chief (with Harry Lennix, Ever Carradine, Anthony Azizi and Eyal Podell), Las Vegas (with JoBeth Williams and Tom Choi) and Sex and the City (with Donnie Keshawarz). She also worked on the NBC's short-lived E-Ring (with Benjamin Bratt, Dennis Hopper and Anil Kumar). In 2012, she played the role of Lena Smith in Covert Affairs. The characters of Lena and Nina share some major similarities.
Recently, Clarke appeared with her husband in The Booth at the End, a series of short episodes that appears on Hulu. She guest-stars as a nun who becomes pregnant so she can hear the voice of God again. Another indie she appeared in recently was 2010's Below the Beltway (with Annie Wersching). In 2016, she appeared in the two-part Season 13 finale of NCIS (with Pauley Perrette and Leslie Hope) where she played FBI Agent Tess Munroe.
Clarke has been credited in some projects as Sarah Lively. She is 5'4" (1.63 m).
Role on 24[]
Clarke auditioned for the role of Nina Myers at the last minute. She got the role on the day that filming began. Since the wardrobe department didn't have time to fit her, she had to wear her own outfit for the entire season of filming. Clarke was part of the main cast for the whole first season. She returned to the role on Seasons 2 and 3, appearing in a total of 36 episodes.
Director Jon Cassar reported that while Clarke's acting abilities came naturally, she still had to be trained for the various firearm scenes during filming.
During the filming of the first season of 24, Clarke met actor Xander Berkeley who played George Mason. They married shortly after and have starred together in films like The Third Date, Below the Belt, and Alibi. On television, they starred together in Wainy Days and on Karen Sisco, also with Thomas Kretschmann. On September 23, 2006, Clarke gave birth to their first girl, Olwyn Harper Berkeley.
24 credits[]
- Season 1 (all episodes)
- Season 2
- "Day 2: 11:00am-12:00pm" (uncredited, photo only)
- "Day 2: 12:00pm-1:00pm"
- "Day 2: 1:00pm-2:00pm"
- "Day 2: 2:00pm-3:00pm"
- "Day 2: 3:00pm-4:00pm"
- "Day 2: 4:00pm-5:00pm"
- "Day 2: 5:00pm-6:00pm"
- Season 3
- 24: The Game
[]
- Clarke provided DVD audio commentary for the following episodes:
- "Day 2: 1:00pm-2:00pm" (with Jon Cassar)
- "Day 3: 10:00pm-11:00pm" (with Howard Gordon)
Selected filmography[]
- CODA (2021)
- The Maestro (2018)
- Staring at the Sun (2016)
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)
- Bedrooms (2010)
- Below the Beltway (2010)
- Women in Trouble (2009)
- Twilight (2008)
- The Lather Effect (2006)
- Happy Endings (2005)
- Thirteen (2003)
- Emmett's Mark (2002)
- The Accident (2001)
- All About George (2000)
- Pas de deux (2000)
Television appearances
- Pandemic Players (2020)
- Bosch (2015-2018)
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2017)
- NCIS (2016)
- The Tomorrow People (2014)
- Covert Affairs (2012)
- Nikita (2011-2012)
- The Booth at the End (2011)
- Men of a Certain Age (2009-2011)
- Trust Me (2009)
- The Cleaner (2008)
- Life (2007)
- Las Vegas (2005)
- House, M.D. (2005)
- Karen Sisco (2003)
- Ed (2001)
- Sex and the City (2000)
Background information and notes[]
- In Day 3 an ID of Nina Myers is displayed, where she uses the name Sarah Berkeley, her real name since her wedding with Xander (George Mason).