Mena Suvari Biography

Mena Suvari

This blue-eyed beauty ignited Kevin Spacey's imagination in the 1999 Oscar-wining American Beauty. The daughter of an Estonian psychiatrist and an American mother, Suvari attended middle school in Charleston, South Carolina, while her three brothers passed through the Citadel, the famous military academy. Plans to become an archaeologist or an astronaut faded when Suvari was signed by the Wilhelmina model agency at age 12. She began her acting career with a Rice-a-Roni commercial at age 13. Her parents moved with her to the West Coast where she quickly found TV roles, including slots on ER and Chicago Hope. Her movie career took off when she played in the teen comedy American Pie (1999) and followed it with American Beauty. Guaranteeing her a place in trivia lore, Suvari starred in yet another movie with the word American in the title, American Virgin (2000), which like her next movie, Loser, tanked at the box office. She was in seven episodes of the 2004 season of the series Six Feet Under.