Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Biography of Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Mary Elizabeth Winstead was born on November 28, 1984 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. She is an American actress.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the fifth and youngest child of Betty Lou and James Ronald Winstead. Her maternal grandfather was a cousin of actress Ava Gardner. When she was five years old, her family moved to Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah.

As a young girl, Winstead attended Peruvian Park Elementary as a gifted child and attended several advanced classes at that school. She studied dance in a summer program in Chicago organized by the Joffrey Ballet, a dance company. She was also a member of the International Children's Choir. Her childhood dream was to have a career as a ballerina. Therefore, she regularly took part in various ballet performances. As she got older, her height forced her to give up her passion for ballet. For this reason, Winstead devoted himself to acting from then on.

After Winstead turned her back on ballet, she devoted herself to acting. She made her Broadway debut in the play Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. After that, she received minor appearances in various television series; she guest-starred in Touched by an Angel.

In 1999, she landed a recurring role as "Jessica Bennett" on the NBC-produced soap opera Passions, but left the series after a year. In 2001, she played Tim Matheson's character's daughter on the CBS drama series Wolf Lake.

After appearing in the film Sky High, Winstead began collaborating with horror film directors James Wong and Glen Morgan, known for producing the television series The X-Files: The FBI, on the film Final Destination 3.

In the same year she was in front of the camera for the horror film Black Christmas, again directed by Morgan and Wong. In 2007, she was nominated for a Scream Awards in the Scream Queen category for her performance. However, the film only received bad reviews.

Also in 2006, she starred in the drama film Bobby. The film shows fictional events at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of June 5, 1968 up until the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Winstead played the role of "Susan Taylor" alongside Harry Belafonte, Shia LaBeouf, Ashton Kutcher, Lindsay Lohan and Demi Moore.

Winstead was cast in the 2007 thriller Death Proof; she played the role of "Lee" in the film directed by Quentin Tarantino. That year, she beat out all her competitors, including Jessica Simpson, for a role in the fourth installment of the Die Hard series. In the film she plays "Lucy Gennero-McClane", the daughter of the protagonist "John McClane". Live Free or Die Hard made her famous around the world.

In 2008, Winstead starred in the dance film Make It Happen, which was released as a direct-to-DVD production due to financial constraints.

In 2010, Winstead starred opposite Michael Cera in the comic book adaptation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. For her role, Winstead received two months of combat training and performed most of the stunts for the film herself.

In February 2010, Winstead landed a role as a paleontologist in the horror and sci-fi film The Thing. The film was released in US theaters on October 14, 2011.

Winstead starred in the 2012 film adaptation of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. In the fantasy and horror film she played the role of "Mary Todd Lincoln". That same year she appeared in James Ponsoldt's tragic comedy Smashed alongside Aaron Paul.

Other film and television roles followed. The film 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) and her leading role received special attention from critics and viewers, for which she received the Saturn Award for Best Actress. Winstead also took on supporting roles in the series BrainDead (2016) and Fargo (2017).

In 2017 she was accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which awards the Oscars annually.

In 2010, Winstead married American filmmaker Riley Stearns. In May 2017, the two publicly announced their split via Instagram. Since May 2017 she has been with Scottish actor Ewan McGregor, her co-star in the television series Fargo. In June 2021, Winstead, for whom McGregor left his ex-wife, gave birth to their first - and McGregor's fifth - child.