Maggie Grace biography

Margaret Grace Denig (born September 21, 1983), best known as Maggie Grace, is an American actress. Originally from Worthington, Ohio, she dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents' divorce. While struggling financially, she landed her first role as the title character in the web-based video series Rachel's Room in 2001. She went on to earn a Young Artist Award nomination in 2002 with her portrayal of 15-year-old murder victim Martha Moxley in the television movie Murder in Greenwich.
In 2004, Grace was cast as Shannon Rutherford in the television series Lost, on which she was a main cast member for the first two seasons, winning a Screen Actors Guild Award shared with the ensemble cast. Leaving the series, Grace was keen to work more prominently in film, having starred opposite Tom Welling in The Fog in 2005. She appeared in Suburban Girl, The Jane Austen Book Club (both 2007), and Taken (2008). She has the lead role of Alice in Malice in Wonderland, a modern take on Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Grace reprised the role of Shannon in two more episodes of Lost, including the series finale.

Early life

Grace was born Margaret Grace Denig in Worthington, Ohio, the second of three children to parents Valinn (née Everett) and Rick Denig, who ran a family jewelry business. Her family lived in a 200-year-old house, the first saltbox house in central Ohio. She attended Worthington Christian Schools from kindergarten through ninth grade and briefly attended Thomas Worthington High School, where she began acting in school plays and community theater, including a Jewish Community Center's Gallery Players' 2000 production of The Crucible. Her parents divorced "amicably" when she was 16 years old, and her mother sought a "fresh start". Grace dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles, California with her mother, while her younger siblings Ian and Marissa continued to live with their father. In Los Angeles, Grace and her mother moved around often as they struggled financially, taking out short-term rents rather than paying for permanent residence while eating a basic diet, as it was all they could afford.

Personal life

Grace lived in Honolulu, Hawaii while working on Lost, saying "I love it here, but it's not a place you can really pursue acting." She claimed that, while living in Hawaii, her Lost co-stars would introduce her to men and that some "would probably have me with a different guy every night." She said that her male co-stars were "mostly very protective" and "very opinionated" when deciding whether she should date certain men; actor Josh Holloway once offered to help her select dates from a portfolio of male models with whom he previously worked. Grace and Ian Somerhalder, her onscreen stepbrother, were rumored to be dating in April 2006 after both had left Lost. When asked about Somerhalder in August, she stated, "Ian's great, I adore him, although I'm only 22 – far too young to even think about having a serious relationship." While still working on Lost, Grace and Somerhalder adopted a feral cat named Roo which they found "literally dying" in the jungle on the set. She said that the cat is now her "travel buddy." In 2008 and 2009, she dated Blake Mycoskie, a contestant on the second season of The Amazing Race and founder of TOMS Shoes.
Grace says that the person she is most inspired by is her mother. When asked about her closest friend, she said that she and her mother were more like sisters and that she is "lucky to have an exceptionally cool mum." She is a self-proclaimed anglophile, having written to a pen pal in the Lake District from the age of eight, having first visited England at 13 years old, and admiring a number of British poets as well as William Shakespeare. She calls herself very clumsy, claiming to "trip over my legs all the time," and was jokingly nicknamed "Maggie Graceless" by one of her former castmates. She plays in a Los Angeles kickball league with her friends.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Rachel's Room	Rachel Reed
2002	Shop Club
	Septuplets	Hope Wilde	TV series
	Murder in Greenwich	Martha Moxley	TV movie
2003	CSI: Miami	Amy Gorman	Episode: "Spring Break"
	Twelve Mile Road	Dulcie Landis	TV movie
	The Lyon's Den	Haley Dugan	Episode: "Beach House"
	Miracles	Hannah Cottrell	Episode: "Mother's Daughter"
2004	Cold Case	Renee	Episode: "Volunteers"
	Creature Unknown	Amanda
	Oliver Beene	Elke	8 episodes
	Like Family	Mary	Episode: "My Two Moms"
	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Jessie Dawning	Episode: "Obscene"
2004–2005, 2007, 2010	Lost	Shannon Rutherford	35 episodes
2005	The Fog	Elizabeth Williams
2007	Suburban Girl	Chloe
	The Jane Austen Book Club	Allegra
2008	Taken	Kim Mills
2009	Malice in Wonderland	Alice
2010	Flying Lessons	Sophie Conway
	Knight and Day	April Havens
	The Experiment	Bay
	Faster	Lily
2011	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1	Irina
2012	Lockout	Emilie Warnock
	Decoding Annie Parker	Sarah	Filming
	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2	Irina	Post production
	Relative Insanity	Nina	Pre-production
	Taken 2	Kim Mills	Post-production
2013	Californication	Faith	In Production
	The Following	Sarah Fuller