Mena Alexandra Suvari Bio

Mena Alexandra Suvari was born in Newport, Rhode Island, to Candice (Thompson), a nurse, and Ando Suvari, a psychiatrist. The father of her is Estonian and her mother is Greek, Norwegian, German, and both of them are Estonian. Mena was born in Rhode Island in an 1870-built home. She had aspirations to become an archaeologist and relocated to Charleston, SC after attending a national modeling competition. This landed her a contract at Wilhelmina Models. She later moved out into Los Angeles under their children's theatre division WeeWillys and began her career as an actor. Her first film appearance was in collaboration with director Gregg Araki in the cult-classic Nowhere (1997) that was followed by the blockbuster American Pie (1999), for which she did her own vocals, and the five-time Oscar-awarded American Beauty (1999) directed by Sam Mendes, in which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award as Best Supporting Actress. People Weekly magazine called her "All-American Girl" (1999) and Entertainment Weekly magazine named her the most patriotic performer in 2000. In 2001 in the context of the blockbuster series, she was added to the blockbuster franchise with American Pie 2 (2001) to the list and then a decade later with American Reunion (2012). Amy Heckerling's romantic comedy Loser (1999) saw her reunion with Jason Biggs. She then showed her versatility when she acted alongside John Leguizamo in Jonas Akerlund’s iconic cult classic Spun (2002) and Jennifer Aniston in Rob Reiner’s Rumor Has It (2006) and Tony Scott’s Domino (2005).