Thora Birch

Thora Birch (born March 11, 1982)^[1] is an American actress. She had early roles in the short-lived sitcom Day by Day and in Purple People Eater (1988), in which she won a Young Artist Award for "Best Young Actress Under Nine Years of Age". She also starred in other films, such as All I Want for Christmas (1991), Patriot Games (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Monkey Trouble (1994), Now and Then (1995) and Alaska (1996).

Her breakthrough role came in 1999 with the Academy Award winning film, American Beauty. Her performance was well received by both critics and audiences and brought Birch to international recognition. She later played the lead role in Ghost World (2001) for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. She appeared in independent films, such as Dark Corners (2006), Train (2008) and Winter of Frozen Dreams (2009).

After taking a break from acting, Birch resumed her acting career in 2016 and played software engineer Morgan in the first season of Carlton Cuse's television series Colony, as well as starring in four independent films.^[2][3][4][5]

Early life

Birch was born in Los Angeles, the eldest child of Jack Birch and Carol Connors. Her parents, who have been her business managers throughout her acting career, are former adult film actors; both appeared in the film Deep Throat.^[6][7][8][9] Birch is of German Jewish, Scandinavian and Italian ancestry.^[10] The family's original surname was Biersch.^[10] Her name, Thora, is derived from the name of the Norse god of thunder and lightning, Thor;^[11] she has a younger brother named Bolt.^[12] Because of their own experience with the entertainment industry, Birch's parents were reluctant to encourage her, but they were persuaded to show her photograph to agents by a babysitter who noticed her imitating commercials. She appeared in commercials in the late 1980s for Burger King, California Raisins, Quaker Oats and Vlasic Pickles.^[13]

Career

1988–1995

Birch made her film debut in Purple People Eater, for which she won a Youth In Film Award.^[14] She also played Molly in the short-lived television series Day By Day. She was credited as "Thora". Birch starred in Paradise, with Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith and Elijah Wood. During the 1990s, she starred in All I Want for Christmas (1991), Hocus Pocus (1993) and Monkey Trouble (1994). She appeared in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as the daughter of Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford). Birch starred in Now and Then (1995) with Gaby Hoffmann, Christina Ricci, Demi Moore, Rosie O'Donnell and Melanie Griffith.

1996–2001

In 1996, she landed a leading role in Alaska (1996). After guest-starring in a few television series, Birch took a break from acting.^[15]

In 1999, she returned in the television film Night Ride Home and had an uncredited role for Anywhere but Here. Later, Birch won critical praise for the role of Jane Burnham in American Beauty and was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award. The film itself went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. As Birch was 16 at the time she made it, and thus classified as a minor in the United States, her parents had to approve her brief topless scene in the film. They and child labor representatives were on the set for the shooting of the scene.^[16][17] After supporting roles in The Smokers (2000), where Birch was called "a scene-stealer" by The Hollywood Reporter,^[18] and Dungeons & Dragons (2000), she landed the lead role alongside Keira Knightley in the horror film The Hole (2001). The film was released in theaters in the UK, and went direct-to-video in the US almost two years later and gained divided reviews. BBC.co.uk wrote: "Given that she has a much leaner role than the one she enjoyed in "American Beauty", the qualities which made her flourish in that multi-Oscar-winner are still abundantly clear".^[19]

Birch landed the leading role in Ghost World (2001), with Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi and Brad Renfro. Her performances gained positive response from film critics and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.^[20] In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott praised her: "Thora Birch, whose performance as Lester Burnham's alienated daughter was the best thing about American Beauty, plays a similar character here, with even more intelligence and restraint".^[21] In his Chicago Reader review, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, "Birch makes the character an uncanny encapsulation of adolescent agonies without ever romanticizing or sentimentalizing her attitudes, and Clowes and Zwigoff never allow us to patronize her".^[22] However, in his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris disliked Birch's character of Enid and remarked: "I found Enid smug, complacent, cruel, deceitful, thoughtless, malicious and disloyal".^[23]

2002–2012

Jane Fonda backstage with Birch before being honored at the 2015 Hollywood Film Awards

Birch played Liz Murray in the television film Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003), for which she received an Emmy nomination.^[24] The next year, she played Karen in Silver City (2004), written and directed by John Sayles, which after premiering at that year's Cannes Film Festival, received a mixed reception.^[25][26]

In 2006, Birch starred in the low-budget horror film Dark Corners, as a troubled young woman who wakes up one day as a different person—someone who is stalked by creatures.^[27] Tony Sullivan, for Eyeforfilm.co.uk, found Birch "convincing as the two halves of this split personality".^[28] She also had the leading role in the 2008 slasher Train.

She starred alongside Brittany Murphy in the psychological thriller Deadline. The film first premiered directly-to-video in October 2009 in the U.K. before being released in December in the U.S. In 2009. She starred in the mystery film Winter of Frozen Dreams. A controversy during filming involving Birch's father and his forced presence during Birch's taping of a sex scene for the film made tabloid headlines.^[8] In January 2010, Birch played Sidney Bloom in the Lifetime movie The Pregnancy Pact.^[29]

Birch was cast and scheduled to make her American stage debut in the off Broadway revival of Dracula, but was fired for the behavior of her father, her manager at the time, who physically threatened one of the show's cast members.^[6] Reflecting on the incident in January 2014, Birch expanded on earlier statements that she had been in a "state of shock" by acknowledging that she had upset a lot of people, while alleging that those people had wanted her to "be not fine."^[26]

In 2012, she appeared as the lead character in Petunia, in which she also produced and one that received a limited release.^[26][30] About the film, Birch said: "I think it's just something that's a little bit different from your standard summer fare. It's a little bit more intimate. It's also a very modern tale. I think it's actually honest."^[31]

2015–present

Birch as Jolene on the set of Above Suspicion

After devoting herself to academic pursuits, Birch returned to her acting career in 2015 with a recurring role as software engineer Morgan in the Carlton Cuse series Colony.^[3][4]

Birch is set to star in four films in 2017. She first starred in the independent filmThe Etruscan Smile with Brian Cox, which was shot in San Francisco and Scotland.^[32] She then went to Kentucky to shoot the thriller Above Suspicion,^[33] based on the book of the same name by New York Times columnist Joe Sharkey, and co-starring Jack Huston, Emilia Clarke and Johnny Knoxville.^[34] Birch starred in the political thriller Public Affairs, with Adrian Grenier. The film was shot in Norfolk, Virginia.^[35] Most recently, Birch starred in the romantic comedy, The Competition, directed by Harvey Lowry, which was shot in Portland. Birch both starred in and produced the film^[36]

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thora Birch.

• Official website
• Thora Birch at the Internet Movie Database
• Thora Birch on Twitter
  
• Thora Birch at AllMovie
• Thora Birch at Emmys.com