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Keri Lynn Russell (born March 23, 1976) is a Golden Globe-winning American actress and dancer. After appearing in a number of made-for-television films and series during the mid-1990s, she came to fame for portraying the title role of Felicity Porter on the series Felicity, which ran from 1998 to 2002. Russell has since appeared in several films, including We Were Soldiers, The Upside of Anger, Mission: Impossible III, Waitress, and August Rush. Though she seemingly came from nowhere to emerge as the star of the WB’s teen-angst drama “Felicity” (1998-2002), actress Keri Russell had for years been cutting her teeth in independent film and on made-for-television movies. But audiences got to know and love Russell as the intelligent, but naïve Felicity Porter, an only child from a sheltered home who moves to New York to attend college against the wishes of her parents and gets exposed to the coarser side of life thanks to her new big city friends. Russell spent four years on the relatively popular show before moving on to bigger and better projects, which included a small, but pivotal role in J.J. Abrams’ deft “Mission: Impossible III” (2006), allowing the actress to make the difficult and often failed transition from small screen to big budget action movies. Russell was born in Fountain Valley, California, the daughter of Stephanie (née Stephens), a homemaker, and David Russell, a Nissan Motors executive. She has an older brother, Todd, and a younger sister, Julie. Russell grew up in Dallas, Texas; Mesa, Arizona; and Denver, Colorado, moving frequently because of her father's job. Russell first appeared on television as a cast member of the New Mickey Mouse Club variety show on the Disney Channel. She was on the show from 1991 to 1993 and co-starred with future pop stars Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, JC Chasez, and Justin Timberlake; and Ryan Gosling. While on “Mickey Mouse,” Russell landed her first feature role in “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” (1992), then appeared on the serialized soap, “Emerald Cove” (1993), which ran on The Disney Channel and featured most of her fellow “Mickey Mouse” cast. Russell left the Disney show to try her hand at various television series and movies, including the short-lived Dudley Moore sitcom “Daddy’s Girls” (1993-94). Russell moved on to play an innocent babysitter trapped in a web of deceit when she is framed for her employer’s murder in “The Babysitter’s Seduction” (1996), then starred in “The Lottery” (1996), a small town thriller loosely based on the Shirley Jackson short story. Russell landed a regular role on Aaron Spelling’s high school soap “Malibu Shores” (NBC, 1996), but the series only lasted for nine episodes. Despite her initial momentum, Russell found rough going at the early stages of her career. In 1992, she appeared in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid alongside Rick Moranis and in 1993 had a role on the sitcom Boy Meets World as Mr. Feeny's niece. Russell subsequently starred in several film and television roles, including the 1996 made-for-television film The Babysitter's Seduction. She also had a role on the short-lived soap opera series Malibu Shores the same year. In 1994, she appeared in Bon Jovi's music video "Always" with Jack Noseworthy and on Married with Children. In 1997, she appeared in two episodes of Roar alongside Heath Ledger. From 1998 to 2002, Russell starred as the title character on the successful WB Network series Felicity; she won a Golden Globe for the role in 1999. Russell's long and curly hair was one of her character's defining characteristics, and a drastic hairstyle change at the beginning of the show's second season was considered to be the cause of a significant drop in the show's ratings. As a result, new policies were enacted at the network requiring hairstyle changes by cast to be approved by the network's executives. Russell made a return to features, starring in the light-hearted teen sex comedy, “Eight Days a Week” (1997), playing a prototypical sexy girl next door who struggles to ignore the socially inept young man (Josh Schaefer) trying to win her love by camping out beneath her bedroom window. Back on television, she was a high school senior and single mom determined to build a better life for her and her child by going to college in “When Innocence Was Lost” (Lifetime, 1997). After a guest spot on “7th Heaven” (WB, 1996-2007), Russell made another attempt at landing steady series work with the offbeat “Roar” (Fox, 1997), a medieval action-drama for teens that featured an up-and-coming Heath Ledger. Russell starred in one more little-seen feature, the teen thriller “Dead Man’s Curve” (1998), before the now-defunct WB Network and executive producer J.J. Abrams tapped Russell for a career-making role on “Felicity.” Felicity 's ratings drop also coincided with the show's move to a Sunday night time slot, so it is unclear exactly how much effect the hairstyle change actually had. During the show's run, Russell appeared in the films Eight Days a Week, The Curve and Mad About Mambo, all of which received only limited releases in North America. Her next role was in the Mel Gibson-starring film We Were Soldiers, playing the wife of an American serviceman. The film was released in March 2002, two months before the end of Felicity's run. When Felicity ended, Russell took a break from acting. She moved to New York City and took two years off to avoid the business of Hollywood, spending time with friends. Russell subsequently made her off-Broadway stage debut in 2004, appearing opposite Jeremy Piven, Andrew McCarthy, and Ashlie Atkinson in Neil LaBute's Fat Pig. In 2005, she returned to television and film, beginning with an appearance in the Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie The Magic of Ordinary Days, theatrical film The Upside of Anger (alongside Kevin Costner, Joan Allen and Evan Rachel Wood), and the television miniseries Into the West. Although a number of her Felicity co-stars went on to appear in producer J. J. Abrams' series, Alias, Russell declined invitations to be part of the show. In a seminar at the Museum of Television and Radio, Abrams said, "I've asked Keri if she would ever do it, and I usually get this, sort of like, giggle and then she hangs up". Russell rode the wave of her newfound enthusiasm and signed on to several appealing projects, including a supporting role as one of four headstrong daughters dealing with their alcoholic mother (Joan Allen) in the underappreciated character study “The Upside of Anger” (2005). Following the made-for-television movie “The Magic of Ordinary Days” (2005) and Steven Spielberg’s award-winning mini-series “Into the West” (TNT, 2005), she was tapped for “Mission: Impossible III” her highest-profile gig since “Felicity”playing the protégé of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) who gets captured, prompting Hunt to leave his comfortable suburban Virginia life to rescue her. Despite the large exposure from a hugely successful action flick, Russell found herself more at home doing low-budget independents. She starred in the late Adrienne Shelly’s hopeful dark comedy, “Waitress” (2007), playing a pregnant pie maker who struggles to deal with a jealous lout of a husband (Jeremy Sisto) while searching for the perfect recipe for love. In 2005, Abrams asked Russell to join the cast of Mission: Impossible III, a film he directed, and she accepted. The film was released on May 5, 2006. In the summer of 2006, Russell was chosen to be a celebrity spokeswoman for CoverGirl Cosmetics. Before she was in Mission Impossible: III she was screen tested for the role of "Lois Lane" in Superman Returns but lost the role to Kate Bosworth with whom she is co-starring in The Girl In The Park. Russell has taped two episodes as a guest character on the NBC show Scrubs in 2007. She played Melody, a sorority sister and good friend of Elliot (Sarah Chalke). The first episode aired on April 26, and the second on May 3. Her most recent film role was in Waitress, a well-reviewed independent film in which she plays Jenna, a pregnant waitress in the American South; it was the fourth film in a row in which Russell had played a pregnant woman. The film opened on May 4, 2007 and Russell's performance was positively received by critics, with Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun writing that Russell's performance had "aesthetic character" and "welds tenderness and fierceness with quiet heat". In the summer of 2007, Russell appeared in The Keri Kronicles, a reality show/sitcom sponsored by CoverGirl and airing on MySpace; the show was filmed at Russell's home in Manhattan and spotlighted her life. Russell next appeared in August Rush, a drama released in November of 2007. She has completed roles in Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story (titled Rohtenburg for its German release), in which she plays Katie Armstrong, a graduate student who writes a thesis paper on an infamous cannibal murder case, and the thriller The Girl In The Park, opposite Sigourney Weaver, Kate Bosworth and Alessandro Nivola. Russell has recently joined the cast of Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler playing the lead. Russell has recently been confirmed to provide the voice of Wonder Woman in a direct to DVD animated feature to be released sometime in either late 2008 or early 2009. In 2005, several reports claimed that Russell was set to adopt Scientology, after working with actor Tom Cruise, who is a Scientologist, on Mission: Impossible III. Russell's representative subsequently threatened to sue the reporter who first made the claim. Stories about the incident had noted that Russell is of Jewish heritage and religion; older reports, which had originally suggested her conversion to Scientology, had mentioned that she was once a member of the Mormon church. As of 2007, Russell resides in Brooklyn. Russell and Shane Deary, a carpenter she met through mutual friends, became engaged in 2006 and were married on February 14, 2007 in New York. Russell gave birth to a boy, named River Russell Deary, on June 9, 2007 in New York. Russell had a midwife-assisted hospital birth; she has described her pregnancy experience as "real great and easy". She also dated Felicity co-star Scott Speedman during the show's run. She also dated her Mickey Mouse Club and Malibu Shores co-star Tony Lucca who accompanied her to the Golden Globe and Emmy awards in 1999. Keri still remains friends with a handful of her Mickey Mouse Club costars including Ilana Miller, who she took to the 1999 MTV Movie Awards, and Lindsey Alley, who she mentioned on the red carpet of the Oscar ceremony in 2008. |
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