Taissa Farmiga Biography

Taissa Farmiga (born August 17, 1994) is an American television and film actress. Farmiga first made her debut film appearing as young Corinne in her sister Vera Farmiga's directorial debut Higher Ground, and came to prominence playing Violet Harmon in the FX television series American Horror Story. Subsequently, she appeared in films, including Mindscape and The Bling Ring.

Career

Farmiga initially had no ambitions to become an actress, but was persuaded to appear in sister Vera Farmiga's directing debut, Higher Ground, playing the 16-year-old version of her sister's character. After her performance in the film was acclaimed at the Sundance Film Festival, she decided to pursue an acting career. In May 2011, she was cast as Violet Harmon in the miniseries American Horror Story. The series debuted October 5, 2011 and was met with critical acclaim. The show was nominated for two Golden Globes and seventeen Emmy Awards. The second season of the show featured completely different characters in a new location, therefore Farmiga did not return to the show due to lack of any teenage characters in the second season. This year she joined a leading role in the drama Jamesy Boy. The film tells the story of a young suburban street gang member who gets sent to a maximum-security prison and strikes up an unlikely friendship with a convicted murderer. Farmiga will play the main character's love interest with a supporting cast that includes Mary-Louise Parker, Ving Rhames, and James Woods. Most recently, Farmiga starred in "The Bling Ring" along with British icon Emma Watson and newly famous Katie Chang as valley girls whose greatest ambition is to experience a crazy celebrity life. The three girls and Marc, who is played by Israel Broussard, visit several Hollywood celebrities' homes and rob the celebrities' riches. Eventually they are caught and have to deal with the consequences.

Farmiga and Nicholas Braun signed on to the indie dramedy Middleton. Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga star as "a man and woman who fall in love while taking their children on a college admissions tour." According to THR, Farmiga will play the woman's daughter. In 2012, she joined the cast of Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring. Written by Coppola, the film is based on the true story of a group of teenagers who robbed the homes of the rich and famous between October 2008 and August 2009, coming away with over $3 million worth of loot from the likes of Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, and Lindsay Lohan. The cast is led by Harry Potter's Emma Watson and Leslie Mann. The same year she had been cast in Mindscape will mark the feature-length directorial debut of Spaniard Jorge Dorado. The story of the film, written by Guy and Martha Holmes, centres on a man with the ability to enter people's memories who is working on the case of a brilliant but problematic teenager to determine whether she is a sociopath or the victim of a trauma. The cast includes actors Mark Strong and Brian Cox. The film comes to theaters in 2013.

Farmiga is set to return to the third season of American Horror Story in a lead role similar to that of her role in the first season, while once again opposite Evan Peters, her love interest in the first season. In January 2013, series creator Ryan Murphy hinted that a clue about the third season would be hidden in the tenth episode of the second season. In a later interview discussing that episode, he stated: "I sorta feel like for the third version I want to do something that's a little bit more 'evil glamour.' Just something that's a little bit more...one of the things that I missed this season was I really loved having that Romeo and Juliet youth story with Violet and Tate [from the first season]. I want something like that again and we're doing something like that in the third season. And we're contemplating shooting the show in a different place. We're contemplating shooting it in a place in the country where true horror has been."

Personal life

Farmiga was born in Clifton, New Jersey and raised in the Whitehouse Station section of Readington Township, New Jersey. She is the youngest of seven children, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants Mykhailo Farmiga, a computer-systems analyst, and Luba Farmiga, a schoolteacher. She is the sister of Oscar-nominated actress Vera Farmiga (the second oldest) who is 21 years older and her brother-in-law is musician Renn Hawkey. Taissa told in interview: "When I was growing up, people would always confuse me for Vera's daughter, but she's my older sister". Taissa and Vera consider each other their best friends. Taissa told the magazine Teen Vogue: "Vera is my stylist, my everything". Vera, for her part, feels similarly: "Taissa is the person you take with you to choose your Oscar gown and then take to In-N-Out Burger. As much of an age difference as there is, she is one of my best friends in the world".

Farmiga made her acting debut in her sister Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, the drama film Higher Ground, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. She told: "I never wanted to be an actor. Acting had always been Vera's thing, not mine, but when we were at Sundance, I decided I officially loved acting", She made her TV debut in American Horror Story: Murder House.

She speaks English and Ukrainian. She took American Sign Language classes for three years along with other members of her homeschool group. She loves the outdoors and enjoys snowboarding and hiking.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2011	Higher Ground	Teenage Corinne Walker	Film debut as younger version of sister Vera Farmiga's character.
2013	'	Sam
2013	Jamesy Boy	Sarah	Completed
2013	Middleton	Audrey	Completed
2013	Mindscape	Anna	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2011	American Horror Story: Murder House	Violet Harmon	Main role (12 episodes)
2013	American Horror Story: Coven	Zoe Benson