Mischa Barton Biography

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Hailed as one of the most talented child actors of the 1990s, Mischa Barton had carved out the beginnings of an enviable career on the screen and stage by the time most kids her age were being allowed to see PG-13 movies on their own.

Possessing blonde hair, blue eyes the color and approximate size of Wedgewood saucers, and precocious intelligence, Barton first came to the attention of critics and audiences as the ten-year-old heroine of John Duigan’s Lawn Dogs (1997), a drama that cast her as an alienated girl whose friendship with an earthy lawn boy (Sam Rockwell) creates controversy in her exclusive neighborhood.

Born January 24, 1986, in London, England, Barton was raised in the city until the age of four, when her father took a job on Wall Street that relocated the family to New York.

Following the move, she began working as a child model and taking summer camp acting classes; after being spotted by a talent agent, the aspiring actress got her first professional break on the New York stage in 1994, when she played Vodya Domik, one of the lead characters in an off-Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Slavs!

Earning rave reviews for her performance, Barton went on to perform in a number of plays, including the Lincoln Center production of James Lapine’s Twelve Dreams and Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre, which cast her in the lead role of a street urchin opposite Dianne Wiest.

While she was building a career on the stage and as a model for the likes of Calvin Klein, Barton was also beginning to accumulate a number of screen credits.

After doing a year-long stint on the popular soap opera All My Children, she had her first publicized screen role in the little-seen New York Crossing (1996), in which she starred as an Upper East Side schoolgirl opposite Tina Majorino and Karen Black.

The film was released in 1997, the same year that Lawn Dogs came out to fairly strong reviews that resulted in the first shades of publicity for Barton.

A starring role as a 13-year-old who holds up a bank alongside her boyfriend followed in 1999, in the independent drama Pups; unfortunately, the film was released only two days before the tragic killing spree at Columbine High School, and unsurprisingly, failed to earn much in the way of distribution.

That same year, Barton appeared in supporting roles in both Notting Hill and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, the latter of which cast her as the ghost of a sickly girl.

Barton’s increasing recognition was subsequently reflected by her involvement in a number of screen projects. Included amongst them was Skipped Parts (2000), a coming-of-age comedy which cast her as a sexually precocious 14-year-old who is in a hurry to lose her virginity. The film also starred Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brad Renfro, and Drew Barrymore.

In 2008, Barton appeared on the popular show Gok’s Fashion Fix on Channel 4. In the episode, Gok goes on an exclusive shopping trip in Paris with Mischa. She appeared in Assassination of a High School President, co-starring Bruce Willis, when the film premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film was scheduled for a theatrical release in February 2009 but this was cancelled when the distributor, Yari filed for bankruptcy. The film received a TV premiere in Russia on 14 May 2009. Sony will release the title in the US on DVD on 6 October 2009.

She also starred in the horror, Walled In which was released straight-to-DVD in March 2009. Her next horror project, Homecoming received a limited release in July 2009. Barton failed to attend the premiere of the psychological thriller due to a medical issue.

She also starred in Don’t Fade Away, which is expected to be released in 2010. She began filming You and I, A t.A.T.u.-inspired film directed by Roland Joffé. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008 although is expected to be released in 2010.

In a December 2007 interview, she indicated that she would return to television for the right project; “It’s not that I dislike doing television at all. It would be interesting having more creative control over where the storylines go or the characters. But for the right thing, of course.”

In early 2009 she starred alongside Martin Sheen in Bhopal: Prayer for Rain a biopic of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The title is currently in post-production and expected to be released in 2010. Barton was recently cast in The Science of Cool.

She recently starred as one of the main characters on The Beautiful Life a new series on The CW. The series was subsequently cancelled on 25 September 2009 after televising 2 episodes. In December 2009 the technology company HP became the show’s sponsor and began airing the show’s five episodes on YouTube.

She guest starred on a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode that aired on 3 March 2010. She was recently cast in the lead role of the film adaptation of the novel, Engram in the UK/German production listed as a medical conspiracy action/thriller. In July 2010 she was cast in the horror-thriller Into the Darkness, which is scheduled for a 2011 release.