Mia Kirshner

Biography:

Mia Kirshner was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Etti (Henrietta), a schoolteacher, and Sheldon Kirshner, a journalist for The Canadian Jewish News. She is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Her father was born in 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, and later met her mother—a Bulgarian Jewish refugee of Sephardic heritage—after both had immigrated to Israel. Her paternal grandparents were Polish Jews of Ashkenazi descent. Raised in a middle-class family, Kirshner attended Forest Hill Collegiate Institute before graduating from Jarvis Collegiate Institute. She later studied Russian literature and 20th-century cinema at McGill University in Montreal. Her younger sister, Lauren Kirshner, is a writer who participated in the I Live Here project.

Kirshner began acting in 1989 with a role in the second season of War of the Worlds, portraying both a resistance fighter named Jo and her alien-created duplicate. She made her film debut at 18 in Denys Arcand’s Love and Human Remains (1993), persuading her father to sign a nudity waiver so she could play a dominatrix. The following year, she starred as a troubled exotic dancer in Atom Egoyan’s Exotica. In 1996, she appeared in The Crow: City of Angels, and in 1997 she played Kitty Scherbatsky in Anna Karenina.

In 2001, Kirshner appeared in the first three episodes of 24 as the assassin Mandy, later reprising the role in the season two finale and during season four. That same year, she portrayed Catherine Wyler in Not Another Teen Movie, a character that parodied Kathryn Merteuil from Cruel Intentions and drew partial inspiration from Mackenzie Siler in She’s All That. She also made a cameo as Catherine in Marilyn Manson’s “Tainted Love” music video, which appeared on the film’s soundtrack.

In 2004, she joined the cast of the drama series The L Word as writer Jenny Schecter, remaining on the show throughout its six-season run until 2009.

Kirshner starred in Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia (2006), portraying Elizabeth Short. Although the film received largely negative reviews, critics widely praised her performance. Reviewers highlighted her portrayal as emotionally compelling and haunting. In 2010, she co-starred in 30 Days of Night: Dark Days and also appeared in a guest role as Isobel Flemming on The Vampire Diaries.

In 2011, she voiced the central character in Bear 71, a National Film Board of Canada interactive documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The following year, she joined the Syfy series Defiance. In 2013, she was announced as a guest star in the fourth season of Lost Girl.

Between 2017 and 2019, Kirshner played Amanda Grayson—the mother of Spock and stepmother of Michael Burnham—on Star Trek: Discovery, a role originally portrayed by Jane Wyatt in the original Star Trek series. She later reprised the character in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

In 2019, it was reported that Kirshner would appear in Lifetime’s film The College Admissions Scandal, inspired by the real-life admissions bribery case involving Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. Speaking about her role, she described the story as one centered on privilege and corruption, portraying a character driven by greed and self-interest.

In 2020, she co-starred with Ben Savage in the Hallmark Channel holiday movie Love, Lights, Hanukkah!, playing a restaurant owner who discovers her Jewish heritage through a DNA test.

Beyond acting, Kirshner published the book I Live Here in 2008 after seven years of development. Co-produced with Paul Shoebridge, Michael Simons, and writer James MacKinnon, the book documents the lives of women and child refugees from regions including Chechnya, Juárez, Burma, and Malawi. Featuring contributions from graphic artists such as Joe Sacco and Phoebe Gloeckner, it was published by Random House/Pantheon, with logistical support from Amnesty International, which received proceeds from sales. Following its release, Kirshner was invited by MIT’s Center for International Studies to teach a four-week course on the project.

Kirshner ranked #43 on Maxim’s Hot 100 Women list in 2002 and received a Best Kiss nomination at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards alongside Beverly Polcyn for Not Another Teen Movie. In 2011, she became the face of Monica Rich Kosann’s jewelry line.

From 2014 to 2015, Kirshner was in a relationship with actor and playwright Sam Shepard.