rooney mara american film and television actress

Patricia Rooney Mara born 1985 is an American film and television actress. Mara made her acting début in 2005 and has gone on to star in films including A Nightmare on Elm Street, the remake of the 1984 horror film, and The Social Network. Mara will portray Lisbeth Salander, the title character in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first of three Sony Pictures films based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy book series.
Mara is also known for her charity work. She oversees the charity Faces of Kibera, which benefits orphans from the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the largest slums in Africa. She is also the younger sister of actress Kate Mara.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Acting career
* 3 Faces of Kibera
* 4 Personal life
* 5 Filmography
* 6 References
* 7 External links
Early life
Mara was born and raised in Bedford, New York, a town in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City. She is the daughter of Timothy Christopher Mara, the vice president of player evaluation for the New York Giants, and Kathleen McNulty (née Rooney). She has three siblings: Daniel, Conor and Kate.
Mara is of Italian (from her maternal grandmother) and Irish descent; the Rooney family trace their Irish ancestry to County Down. Mara is the great-granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, Sr. and New York Giants founder Tim Mara. Her paternal grandfather, Wellington Mara, was the long-time co-owner of the Giants, succeeded by her uncle, John Mara. Her maternal grandfather, Tim Rooney, has run Yonkers Raceway in Yonkers, New York since 1972. is the grand-niece of Daniel Rooney, chairman of the Steelers, the United States Ambassador to Ireland, and the co-founder of The Ireland Funds charitable organization.
Mara graduated from Fox Lane High School in 2003, and then travelled to Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia in South America for four months as part of the Traveling School, an open learning environment. She attended the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, where she studied psychology, international social policy, and nonprofits. She graduated in 2010.
Mara was inspired to act by going to see musical theatre and by watching old movies, like Gone with the Wind (1939), Rebecca (1940), and Bringing Up Baby (1938), with her mother. She also wanted to be like her older sister, Kate Mara, a professional actress. Mara resisted pursuing acting as a child, stating to The Journal News that "it never seemed that honorable to me, and I guess I was always afraid that I might fail." She won the role of Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet, after being signed up to audition by a friend, and acted in a few student films while at NYU. Mara then began pursuing a career in acting.