Kate Mara

She is a great-granddaughter of both New York Giants founder Tim Mara and Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, Sr. Her mother's side of the family has held ownership in the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers football team since its formation in 1933, and her father's side of the family has held ownership in the NFL's New York Giants since its formation in 1925.

Her paternal grandparents were Wellington Mara and Ann Mara.

Wellington co-owned the Giants football team from 1959 until his death in 2005, and was succeeded by his son (Kate Mara's uncle), John Mara, who is currently President, CEO, and co-owner of the team.

Kate Mara's maternal grandfather, Timothy James "Tim" Rooney, has operated Yonkers Raceway in Yonkers, New York since 1972.

Her granduncle, Dan Rooney, chairman of the Steelers, was a former United States Ambassador to Ireland and the co-founder of the charitable organization The Ireland Funds.

Her first cousin, once removed, Art Rooney II, is the current president and co-owner of the Steelers.

Mara began acting at the age of nine in a school musical.

She attended several youth theater-arts schools and appeared in community theater and in school plays.

In an Esquire magazine interview, she says she was "painfully shy" growing up, adding she only had one friend.

Her first audition was for the NBC police drama Homicide: Life on the Street.

She did not get the role, but knew from then on she wanted to act.

Mara graduated from Fox Lane High School a year early, and was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University to study musical theater, but deferred her slot to work as an actress.

Kate Rooney Mara (born February 27, 1983 ) is an American actress.

Kate Mara was born on February 27, 1983, in Bedford, New York.

Her parents are Timothy Christopher Mara, an NFL scout and vice president of the New York Giants for player evaluation, and Kathleen McNulty Mara (née Rooney).

She is the second of four siblings, with one older brother, Daniel; one younger sister, the actress Patricia "Rooney"; and one younger brother, Conor.

Her ancestry is Irish, one quarter Italian, and smaller amounts of German, French-Canadian, and English.

Her father is one of 11 children, through whom she has 20 aunts and uncles, and 40 cousins.

Mara's first television role was in the NBC legal drama Law & Order in 1997.

She went on to guest star on numerous television series, including Madigan Men, Ed and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Mara made her film debut in Random Hearts (1999).

Mara landed two recurring roles in 2003, as Kate on Everwood, an 18-year-old who is impregnated by her piano teacher and then gets an abortion, and as Vanessa on Nip/Tuck, a bisexual cheerleader involved in a love triangle with her boyfriend Matt McNamara (John Hensley) and another cheerleader (Sophia Bush).

Mara also appeared on Cold Case, Boston Public, CSI: Miami and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation that same year.

Mara's stage debut, in 2003, was at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in John Guare's Landscape of the Body with Lili Taylor.

Mara was cast as the lead in the 2004 The WB pilot Prodigy, about a teenage child prodigy.

She has since appeared in Brokeback Mountain (2005), We Are Marshall (2006), Shooter (2007), Transsiberian (2008), Stone of Destiny (2008), The Open Road (2009), Transcendence (2014), The Martian (2015), Fantastic Four (2015), Morgan (2016), Megan Leavey (2017), My Days of Mercy (2017), and Chappaquiddick (2018).

She had a recurring role on the WB's Jack & Bobby in 2005 and a five-episode arc on the Fox TV series 24 in 2006, playing computer analyst Shari Rothenberg.

Mara starred in The Alice Complex, a play by Peter Barr Nickowitz, at Dixon Place in New York City in 2005, and at the Blank Theatre in Los Angeles in 2006.

The production co-starred Tony Award-winner Harriet Harris.

In 2006, she told WFAN radio that theater is a "dream" because it was "all I really wanted to do as a kid. I didn't care about movies or TV, I just wanted to do Broadway".

Mara joined the cast of the HBO comedy-drama Entourage for the series' sixth season in 2009.

She played Brittany, Eric "E" Murphy (Kevin Connolly)'s assistant at his talent-management company and a potential love interest.

Mara filmed four episodes for the series in 2009.

In 2011, she guest starred on the FX horror series American Horror Story, as Hayden McClaine, a student who becomes Dr. Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott)'s dead mistress, a spirit trapped in the Harmon house.

Mara was offered the role by Ryan Murphy, her former producer on Nip/Tuck.

In 2012, Mara joined the cast of House of Cards, playing the part of Zoe Barnes, an intrepid reporter from Washington, D.C. who becomes a major ally to Frank Underwood by leaking stories that undermine his rivals.

She is known for work in television, playing reporter Zoe Barnes in the Netflix political drama House of Cards (2013–2014; 2016), computer analyst Shari Rothenberg in the Fox thriller series 24 (2006), wronged mistress Hayden McClaine in the FX miniseries American Horror Story: Murder House (2011), Patty Bowes in the first season of the FX drag ball culture drama series Pose (2018), and a teacher who begins an illicit relationship with an underage student, in the FX miniseries A Teacher (2020).

For the latter, she received an Independent Spirit nomination for Best New Scripted Series as an executive producer.

She filmed a second season of the series, which was released on February 14, 2014.

On July 10, 2014, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.