Mena Alexandra Suvari Bio

Suvari was born in Newport on the 13th of February 1979. She is the daughter of Candice (nee Chambers), and Ando Suvari psychiatrist. The mother of the child is Greek origin, and her father was an Estonian from Parnu. Three of her older brothers are AJ, Sulev and Juri. When she was a teenager Suvari began modeling for Millie Lewis Models & Talent. Soon after Suvari was featured in an Rice-A-Roni commercial. The family eventually relocated to Charleston, South Carolina where her brothers attended The Citadel. Suvari was contemplating becoming an archaeologist, astronaut or doctor when a modeling agency stopped by the school she attended exclusively for girls, Ashley Hall, to offer classes. Suvari was already performing for five years while modeling for Wilhelmina which is a New York-based agency. Suvari relocated to California in 1997, and she graduated from Providence High School in Burbank. Suvari began acting at the age of 15 with guest appearances on television shows Boy Meets World, and ER. Suvari also appeared on a number of episodes of the show High Incident, and played a girl infected with HIV in a single-episode role in Chicago Hope. She played Zoe in the 1997 independent drama that focused on an upcoming drama about growing up, Nowhere directed by Gregg Araki, and starring James Duval and Rachel True, Heather Graham and Ryan Phillippe, she was able to make the shift from film to television. In 1997, she was a supporting actress in the independent film Snide and Prejudice. She was also in the suspense film Kiss the Girls opposite Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. In 1998, she was a part of the independent dramedy Slums of Beverly Hills, as a teenaged neighbor of a Jewish girl struggling to make it through the late 1970s. This film was released on a short run and garnered a loyal fan base. Suvari was also a part on the set of Slums as a teenager neighbor to an Israeli girl struggling to become a teenager in the latter part of the 1970s. She subsequently played a teenager who takes her own life in the sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), and appeared as the daughter of a National Transportation Safety Board investigator in the thriller about disasters NBC miniseries Atomic Train (1999), though both films were disapproved of by critics.