Samantha Mathis

Samantha Mathis, 2019

Samantha Mathis (born May 12, 1970 in New York City ) is an American actress .

life and career

Mathis was born in Brooklyn . Her mother, Bibi Besch , was an Austrian actress who emigrated to the USA in the early 1960s. She is therefore also the granddaughter of Gusti Huber and Gotfrid Köchert . At the age of three, Mathis saw her parents divorce and stayed with her mother. When she was five, Mathis moved with her mother to Los Angeles County , California . Inspired by her mother, Mathis later decided to become an actress at the age of twelve.

She was able to achieve this at the age of sixteen and get her first supporting roles in television series. She played her first major role in the film Hart auf Sendung (1990), in which she starred alongside Christian Slater . She was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her role in the 1992 film Showtime , in which she played alongside Carrie Fisher and Dan Aykroyd . In the film The Thing Called Love (1993) by Peter Bogdanovich , she played alongside River Phoenix , with whom she had a relationship and whom she accompanied on the night of his death.

In 1994 she played one of the March sisters in the film drama Betty and Her Sisters. In 1995 she starred in the romance Hello Mr. President alongside Michael Douglas as his assistant. Again she played the role of a national park guard in the film Operation - Broken Arrow (1996) by John Woo, alongside Slater . In 2000 she appeared in a supporting role in American Psycho and in 2001 in The Mists of Avalon in the role of Gwenhwyfar. In 2004 she played the wife of the title hero in the comic book adaptation The Punisher in a supporting role.

In the second part of the film adaptation of the Ayn Rand bestseller Atlas throws off the world ( Atlas Shrugged ), she embodied Dagny Taggart in one of the leading roles in 2012.

Due to her Austrian origins, Mathis speaks fluent German . She is a vegetarian and a good friend of Sandra Bullock , with whom she played in The Thing Called Love .