Amanda Peet Celebrity

Real name: Amanda Peet

Birth Place: New York, NY

Date of Birth / Zodiac Sign: 01/11/1972, Capricorn

Profession: Actress

Amanda Peet was born in New York City on January 11, 1972. Her parents are Charles and Penny Peet. Coming from a multi-cultural household influenced her childhood; her father is a member of the Quaker faith and her mother has Jewish ancestry. Amanda completed her early education in New York, and then moved on to study at Columbia University, where she pursued a degree in History. It was at Columbia that she first auditioned for an acting teacher, helping her realize her first performances, the first of many being an off-Broadway production of Awake and Sing by Clifford Odets.

The sloe-eyed brunette made her onscreen debut in Craig Singer's Animal Room (1996). That same year, she could also be seen in an episode of Law & Order, and went on to play a role in Grind (1996), a crime drama starring Billy Crudup. Before long, Peet landed a small role in the Michelle Pfeiffer-George Clooney romantic comedy One Fine Day. Since then, the actress has continued to build both her film and television credits: in 1997, she appeared in the AIDS drama Touch Me, and the following year she had sizable roles in South Boston crime drama Southie with Donnie Wahlberg and Rose McGowan, which won the American Independent award at the 1998 Seattle Film Festival. On television, she could be seen guest starring on a number of shows including Seinfeld and Ellen Foster. In 1999, she got her own television show, Jack & Jill, on the WB network.

A scene-stealing role as an aspiring mobster in the comedy "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000) put actress Amanda Peet on the map, even though she spent years prior to that studying with one of the premier drama coaches in New York. She would return to drama in a number of notable films including Stephen Gaghan's political thriller "Syriana" (2005), but before being a part of that critical favorite, she suffered innumerable castings as one dimensional girlfriends and objects of desire in low budget sex comedies and big budget flops like "Saving Silverman" (2001). Her reputation became more favorable when she charmingly held her own opposite Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give" (2003) and was tapped by Woody Allen for "Melinda Melinda" (2005). When her regular gig as a network president on Aaron Sorkin's highly anticipated series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (NBC, 2006-07) proved short-lived, the maturing actress was fortunate to still find herself increasingly in demand for high profile feature film work that required strong, beautiful, intelligent women who could hold their own with the boys.