MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD

Date of Birth
28 November 1984, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA

Nickname
MEW
Mary

Height
5' 8½" (1.74 m)

Mini Biography
Mary Elizabeth Winstead was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. She grew up in Salt Lake City and North Carolina many years of her life and actually had an ambition to become a ballerina, for which she attended Joffrey Ballet School in Chicago at the age of 11 and started taking acting lessons too.

Her theatre credits include "The Nutcracker" and the Broadway production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" with Donny Osmond.

Her most notable roles are in movies such as Sky High (2005), Final Destination 3 (2006), The Ring Two (2005) and the horror remake, Black Christmas (2006).

On the small screen, Winstead is probably best known for her role as "Jessica Bennett" in the popular NBC daytime drama "Passions" (1999), for which she received nominations from the Hollywood Reporters' Young Star Awards and the Young Artist Awards for her performance on the show. Other television credits include the CBS series "Wolf Lake" (2001), the MTV original telepic Monster Island (2004) (TV) and guest roles in popular shows such as "Touched by an Angel" (1994), "Tru Calling" (2003) and "Promised Land" (1996). She ia a distant cousin of Ava Gardner.

Spouse
Riley Stearns (9 October 2010 - present)

Trade Mark
Her low voice

Wide eyes and pale skin


Trivia
Has three older sisters and an older brother.

Born to James Ronald Winstead and his wife Betty Lou Knight.

Enjoys cooking,dancing, and singing.

Ranked #92 on Maxim's Hot list 2007.

Distant cousin of actress Ava Gardner.

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#100). [2007].

Ranked #10 on Maxim's "Hottest Women of Horror Movies" list.

Ranked #91 on Askmen.com's 100 Most Desirable Women in the World (2008).

Ranked #88 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women of 2009.

Represented by WME agent Warren Zavala.

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 20 "young, talented, and really happening right now" (2009).

Was featured as The Women Of GQ.

Named as Hottest Girls of Comic-Con 2010.

Ranked #17 out of 101 for Men's Health 'Hottest Women of 2011'.

Favorite movies include 'Sunset Boulevard', 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'Fargo'.

Good friends with Lacey Chabert, Rosario Dawson, Amanda Crew and Sydney Tamiia Poitier.

Lands at #13 in Portrait Mag's Top 30 Under 30.

Ranked #62 SuperiorPics.com 100 Hottest Women [2007].

Voted by TC Candler's 100 Most Beautiful Faces of 2008 [#100].

Ranked #75 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women of 2008.

Voted on FHM Australia's 100 Sexiest Women [2008] Ranked #75.

Ranked #66 in Stuff's 100 Sexiest Women of 2007.

Was raised as a Southern Baptist.


Personal Quotes
You have to believe that it is what you want to do with your life and you have to be dedicated to it.

On the "Die Hard" series: I think they're some of the best action movies ever made. Bruce Willis just brings such a great character to life, and John McClane is someone we can all relate to and root for. He's so much fun to watch on screen. It's iconic the character he's created and it's so much fun to be part of an iconic series.

On her career: I've been performing since I came out of the womb. I've been dancing and singing since I was a toddler. Acting seemed like a natural progression from that. I just started getting roles naturally because it was something I was interested in. I didn't plan on taking it out to Hollywood.

On what she is looking for in a man: I'd say someone who doesn't take themselves seriously. That's my biggest thing.

You don't have to play masculine to be a strong woman.

[on sex scenes]: I prefer to do a love scene with someone I've just met.

You find yourself in situations where you have to put on a front, where you have to put on a happy face even if you are frustrated or annoyed. I think actors are in those situations all the time because they are constantly being put in situations where you have to be smiling. If you are not happy that day, you have to be nice to everyone around you if you want to get ahead. So yeah, absolutely you have to. I don't feel that I do that too much because I am a pretty happy person in general, so it comes pretty easily to me.

I acted in theater and I took film classes when I was 12 and just obsessed over it. I loved it and spent hours and hours in the film studio learning and watching. I always knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. That is why I was home schooled. I was always busy, so normal school didn't work out for me.

For some reason I never feared being type cast. I just take my roles based on the character, and the script, and the people that are doing the film and whether or not I think it would be fun to do the film. But as an actor you do want to challenge yourself and step outside what you have done in the past and that what I like to do, I like to jump around and try different things and stretch myself. I most likely won't do horror for a while but it's just because I've done it already and you move onto the next thing.

I'm from North Carolina, where it's all about greasy, fatty foods. I like having curves. It's weird seeing girls who look like beanpoles. The more famous girls get, the smaller they get. ...I consider myself a size 6 to be a pretty normal girl.I incorporate exercise into my daily routine. ...I recently started running and I do kick-boxing DVDs, too. At the end of the day, the most important thing to me is being healthy and fit.

[on what her favorite horror movie is] - It's a toss up between "The Shining" and "Rosemary's Baby." It's probably "The Shining"; that one terrifies me more than any other film and has since I was a kid. Anytime it's on TV I'll leave it on for the whole movie and I get so drawn into it. It's just amazing.

[on trying to get involved in independent film] - You know it's been really difficult for me a long time. I got my start doing studio films so I've worked my way backwards in a way because I always wanted to do independent films but I got my start in these genre horror type things, and those were the people that noticed me. The independent world didn't really notice me, so it's been a real struggle trying to break into this sort of thing. I spent years being told by independent financiers that I wasn't a big enough name to put in their films. I finally woke up one day, and I was like those aren't the only kind of independent films that are being made, there are just people out there who want to make good films. And they don't care how big the names are. It was during Sundance last year that I made that realization. And I finally made some calls and said introduce me to people at Sundance right now, introduce me to people because I want to be here next year, and it's kind of amazing how it worked out. The first person I met was Jonathan Schwartz who produced the film ["Smashed"] and it all worked out. Last year, he produced "Like Crazy" and I was like okay, I want to meet those people. And luckily he slipped me the script [for "Smashed"], and I did a tape, and I eventually met with James [Ponsoldt] and I just feel really grateful that I was able to put this goal in front of me and it was realized. It's kind of crazy.

I don't pretend to know anything about anything when it comes to the business side ... But I hope because of the way we handled the topic that these are people an audience will want to root for and hang out with.

I think actresses need to be more confident about their bodies, because I'm getting work right now and no one is telling me that I need to lose weight.

I'm pretty normal and definitely far from being anything Hollywood. I don't venture out to clubs very much. I keep to myself.

I don't want the people around me to have to feel differently about me or to have to feel uncomfortable. I don't want to be in a film that I can't show my family or my parents.

When I was 18, I went to clubs and did a lot of drinking for about a month. I got over it. Now it's about ordering pizza at home.

I think at different phases of your life your opinions on things change dramatically. I mean I can't say that 10 years down the road I won't feel a lot more comfortable with that. I mean, I don't know, but at this point in my life, I feel it would be a little weird for me being a young woman in Hollywood and doing nudity, so I'm going to hold out for now. I think that I'll stick to it, but I'm not going to make any guarantees or promises.

It's sort of a personal thing. When I see nudity in film, I don't at all look down on the person who is doing it. I think great for them.

I just feel that I would be betraying a pact that I made with myself and a promise that I made to myself and my family. I'm comfortable with that. I don't want the people around me to have to feel differently about me or to have to feel uncomfortable. I don't want to be in a film that I can't show my family or my parents.

[on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)] I honestly don't know if they are things that Bryan would want out there, so I'll keep them quiet. But things about her family-she's kind of a tragic figure in a way. She's been through a lot, and that's why she's so guarded and mysterious.

[on breaking into the indie film world with Smashed (2007)] It's something I've been trying to do for years and years [...] It's almost like my first movie in a weird way, cause it's my first movie in this world, which is a world I've been trying to break into. [I've wanted] to be around filmmakers that are trying new things [sic] and not part of the system, so to speak, and they're doing things on their own terms.

[on Death Proof (2007)] I haven't, no. I was never a cheerleader. It was funny, because we were asked to wear cheer-leading outfits to the audition, and most of the other girls had them because they were cheerleaders at one point and had them hanging in the closet, somewhere. So I went and found this kind of retro-looking, pseudo cheerleader outfit and it was pretty cool.

[on Death Proof (2007)] Immediately when I heard Quentin Tarantino was having a project, I just wanted to be a part of it in any way I possibly could, even before I read the script. So when I got the script, I was just so excited because there were eight strong female roles, and it's so rare for me to read a script like that. I'm usually going through the entire thing trying to find what part I'm supposed to be playing because it's so male oriented and driven.

Hollywood really still is a boys' club, unfortunately. Everything is from a male perspective. When Bridesmaids (2011) came out it was like this huge revolution, the fact that here was a comedy about women and written by women. It's sad that it had to be such a big deal. Even though there are amazing female directors and executives it is still really off-balance.

It seems like when women are kicking ass it's because we have some superpower. What's so great about Ripley, from Alien (1979), is that she's just a kick-ass woman. For younger women like myself growing up in the 1980s, to see something like that was really empowering so I really want to find roles like that for that same reason, so that other girls will be able to say, "Wow, she is a totally relatable woman who's able to be strong and kick butt."

It's not the whiskers on the man, but rather the man beneath the whiskers.


Where Are They Now
(July 2010) Announced her engagement to writer Riley Stearns in an interview on Spin.com and said she will be getting married in her fiancé's hometown of Austin, TX in October 2010.

(October 2010) Married Riley Stearns in Austin, TX.