Name	Rooney Mara
Height	5' 3"
Naionality	USA
Date of Birth	17-April-1985
Place of Birth	Bedford, New York, USA
Famous for

Patricia Rooney Mara (born 1985)is an American film and television actress. Mara made her acting debut 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 portrayed 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 book series. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for the role.Mara is also known for her charity work. She oversees the charity Uweza Foundation, which supports empowerment programs for children and families in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the largest slums in Africa. She is also the younger sister of actress Kate Mara.Mara was born and raised in Bedford, New York, a town in Westchester County, north 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), a part-time real estate agent.She has two brothers, Daniel and Conor, and an older sister, Kate.

Mara is of Italian (from her maternal grandmother) and Irish descent;the Rooney family trace their Irish ancestry to County Down.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.Mara is the great-granddaughter of both Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, Sr. and New York Giants founder Tim Mara.Her great-uncle, Dan Rooney, is 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 traveled to Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia in South America for four months as part of the Traveling School, an open learning environment. She attended George Washington University for a year, and then transferred to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, 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 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."Her first and only role in high school was Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, which she got after being signed up to audition by a friend.Mara acted in a few student films while at NYU, and then began to pursue a career in acting.She started auditioning at the age of nineteen.Acting careerMara first appeared as an extra in films which starred her sister, including a bit-part in the 2005 direct-to-video horror film Urban Legends: Bloody Mary. She found work in television, her professional acting debut was in 2006, in an episode of the drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as a girl who bullies overweight children.She guest-starred on the legal drama Women's Murder Club in 2007, and played a drug addict in an episode of The Cleaner in 2008.Mara appeared in the feature films Dream Boy and Friends (With Benefits) that year, and guest-starred as Megan for two episodes of NBC's ER in 2009.

Mara landed her first lead role in Tanner Hall, a coming-of-age film which tells the story of four teenage girls set in a New England boarding school. She played Fernanda, who has an affair with a married family friend (Tom Everett Scott).The feature was the debut of filmmakers Tatiana von Fürstenberg and Francesca Gregorini.Tanner Hall debuted at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and had a limited theatrical release in September 2011.Mara dropped her first name, Patricia, to be known professionally by her middle name after working on the project. "I never really liked my first name," Mara stated to Paper magazine. "I never felt like a Tricia. And Rooney is more memorable".Mara's experience led to other film work. She appeared in the comedy Youth in Revolt in 2009, starring Michael Cera and directed by Miguel Arteta. Mara played Taggarty, the love interest of Cera’s best friend. Her character tries to sleep with 50 guys before she goes to college.The film was based on the 1993 cult novel of the same name by C.D. Payne.Mara had auditioned for the starring role, but was offered the smaller part when the lead went to Portia Doubleday.

Mara appeared in the independent film Dare in 2009, starring Emmy Rossum. She played Courtney, a high school senior set on expanding her life experience.Mara also filmed The Winning Season that year, starring Emma Roberts and Sam Rockwell, playing a high school basketball player in a story similar to The Bad News Bears.Her character has an affair with a 40-something year old shoe salesman (Kevin Breznahan).Dare and The Winning Season premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Mara was included on Filmmaker magazine's list of "25 New Faces of Independent Film" that year.Mara starred in A Nightmare on Elm Street in 2010, a remake of the 1984 horror film of the same name.She played the protagonist Nancy Holbrook, a teenage girl who is eager to leave town after graduating from high school.Mara began shooting the film in Chicago on May 5, 2009, directed by Samuel Bayer.Mara told Filmmaker that she felt that her Nancy was "completely different from the original" and "the loneliest girl in the world".Mara had signed on to continue her role if a sequel was made.She stated to Vogue that she disliked the experience of making the film so much, that it made her question if she wanted to be an actress.

Mara appeared at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October 2009 as part of its Breakthrough Performers Program, where she was tutored by Sharon Stone.She appeared in the 2010 film The Social Network by David Fincher, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake.Her character breaks up with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, which inspires him to start the social networking website.In August 2010, Mara was cast as the lead in a film adaptation of the Millennium book trilogy by Stieg Larsson. She plays Lisbeth Salander, a damaged bisexual computer hacker who helps journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) attempt to solve a series of murders.Mara won the role over several other actresses, including Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence and Katie Jarvis, after two and a half months of auditions and screen tests.David Fincher directed the first film, based on the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, with Scott Rudin producing. The other books, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, will also be adapted, depending on box office performance.Fincher convinced executives at Columbia Pictures to cast Mara for the part.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo began shooting in Sweden in September 2010.Mara didn't consider the film to be a remake, but an interpretation of the novel. "I plan on giving my interpretation of the character", she stated to Variety.Mara's long brown hair was cut short and dyed black, in a style reminiscent of 1970s punk and 1980s goth fashions. She also had each of her ears pierced four times, and had her lip, brow, and nipple pierced for the role. Her nose piercing was fake. She kept the nipple piercing so it wouldn't need to be re-pierced for the next movie.Her eyebrows were bleached, and she wore a temporary dragon tattoo.Mara began preparing for the role by starting to skateboard and kickbox. She also underwent dialect and computer training, and visited Stockholm, the setting of the novel.Mara was nominated for the 69th Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her performance.The film was released on December 20, 2011.Mara joined the cast of Terrence Malick's film, Lawless, alongside Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Haley Bennett, which will shoot in 2012.Charity workMara founded the charity Faces of Kibera, which aimed to provide housing, food, and medical care for orphans in Kibera, a Nairobi, Kenya slum. The charity's goal was to build an orphanage in the region, for which 6 acres of land have been purchased.The charity auctioned memorabilia from the Steelers and Giants, as well as training camp events on eBay to raise money.

Mara visited the area as a volunteer in 2006 and was moved to help the orphans, many whose parents have died from AIDS and HIV-related illnesses. She began the charity due to her frustration with the growing number of nonprofits that are just business opportunities. "The people who need help aren’t really getting it. So I started my own", she told Interview magazine in 2009.Mara was not really working yet when she started the charity, so later found it challenging to balance her charity work and acting career. "I need to do both; I can't just do acting,“ she stated to The Journal News.In January 2011, Faces of Kibera merged with Uweza Foundation which runs community-based empowerment programs in Kibera, including soccer leagues and after-school tutoring. Uweza is a Swahili word meaning opportunity, ability, and power.Mara serves as the president of the board of directors for the foundation.Personal life: Mara moved to Los Angeles in early 2007, and lived with her sister temporarily.Although they do not live together anymore, Mara felt that the experience brought them closer together, and they still regularly discuss the film business and movie scripts.Mara described American football as "....the glue that holds our family together," to the New York Post.She includes Gena Rowlands among the actors who inspire her, especially her performances in A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Opening Night (1977).