Jordana Spiro (born April 12, 1977) is an American actress, director, and writer. As an actress, she has starred in numerous films and television series including

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...

's ''

Ozark The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant porti ...

'' and TBS comedy

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

My Boys ''My Boys'' is an American television sitcom that debuted on November 28, 2006, on TBS. The show deals with a sports columnist in Chicago, Illinois, played by Jordana Spiro, and the men in her life, including her brother and her best friend. Th ...

''. Her debut feature '' Night Comes On'', which she directed and co-wrote (with Angelica Nwandu) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018. She developed the film at the Sundance Institute’s Directors, Screenwriters, and Composers Labs, and through a Cinereach development grant. Her short ''Skin'' premiered at Sundance and won the Women In Film Productions award. ''Skin'' also won the Honorable Mention Award at SXSW, showed at Telluride, Palm Springs, and AFI among others. Spiro earned her MFA in Film from Columbia University (2015) and received the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Fellowship. She studied drama at the Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York and was selected to join the Berlinale Talent Campus in Berlin.

Early life and education

Spiro was born and raised in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She is

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish. Spiro has a brother and three sisters. She studied at the

Circle in the Square Theatre The Circle in the Square Theatre is a Broadway theater at 235 West 50th Street, in the basement of Paramount Plaza, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is one of two Broadway theaters that use a thrust stage that extends ...

school and briefly attended the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...

in London. In fall 2009, she began the MFA Program in Filmmaking at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. She finished the degree in 2015. Spiro currently splits her time between

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and New York.

Career

Spiro's first film role was as Catherine Reece in the 1999 film, '' From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter'', a

direct-to-DVD Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, TV series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy was p ...

prequel to the 1996 film ''

From Dusk till Dawn ''From Dusk till Dawn'' is a 1996 American action horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino from a concept and story by Robert Kurtzman. Starring Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Ernest Liu, and ...

''. Spiro starred in the TBS original comedy series ''

''. She played the role of P.J., a twenty-something “guy's girl”, and sports reporter who tries to find romance within her world that is dominated by male friends. The series wrapped its fourth and final season on TBS in 2010. Spiro also appeared in the 2009 comedy '' The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard'' alongside

Jeremy Piven Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series '' Entourage'', for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the Britis ...

Ed Helms Edward Parker Helms (born January 24, 1974) is an American actor and comedian. From 2002 to 2006, he was a correspondent on Comedy Central's ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart''. He played paper salesman Andy Bernard in the NBC sitcom '' The Offi ...

and Rob Riggle, and produced by

Will Ferrell John William Ferrell (; born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. He first established himself in the mid-1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show '' Saturday Night Live'', where he performed from 1995 to 2 ...

and Adam McKay. ''The Goods'' was directed by

Neal Brennan Neal Brennan (born October 19, 1973) is an American comedian, writer, producer, director, and podcaster. He is best known for co-creating and co-writing the Comedy Central series ''Chappelle's Show'' (2003–2006) with Dave Chappelle and for his ...

. Additional credits include ''The Year of Getting to Know Us'' which premiered at the 2008 Sundance film festival, IFC's ''Alone with Her'', as well as guest appearances on ''

Cold Case A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or r ...

'', ''

Out of Practice ''Out of Practice'' is an American sitcom television series that was produced by Paramount Television and originally broadcast on sister company CBS from September 19, 2005, to March 29, 2006. With producers Joe Keenan and Christopher Lloyd ...

'', and ''

CSI: NY ''CSI: NY'' (''Crime Scene Investigation: New York'', stylized as ''CSI: NY/Crime Scene Investigation'') is an American police procedural television series that ran on CBS from September 22, 2004, to February 22, 2013, for a total of nine seaso ...

''. Spiro was scheduled to star in the planned 2010–11 television series '' Love Bites'', but fell out of the role in June 2010 due to other contractual obligations. Spiro was also cast alongside

Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. Born into the Coppola family, he is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Gui ...

and

Nicole Kidman Nicole Mary Kidman (born 20 June 1967) is an American and Australian actress and producer. Known for her work across various film and television productions from several genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid act ...

in the thriller, ''

Trespass Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, woundi ...

''. She was a guest star on the

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

2011 season of '' Dexter''. For the 2012–13 season, she had the lead role in the Fox-TV medical/crime drama ''

The Mob Doctor ''The Mob Doctor'' is an American television drama that aired on Fox from September 17, 2012, to January 7, 2013, as a part of the 2012–13 network television season. The series was created by Josh Berman and Rob Wright and is based on the boo ...

''. Recently, Spiro starred as Rachel Garrison in the

crime drama ''

''.

Personal life

She is married to Matthew Spitzer with whom she has a daughter.

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spiro, Jordana 1977 births Living people Actresses from New York City American film actresses American television actresses Jewish American actresses Columbia University School of the Arts alumni 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews