Carrie Anne Moss
Carrie-Anne Moss (born August 21, 1967) is a Screen Actors Guild Award-nominated Canadian actress known for her roles in Memento, Chocolat and The Matrix trilogy.
Biography
Early life
Carrie-Anne Moss was born in Burnaby, British Columbia. She has an older brother, Brooke. Moss’s mother Barbara named her after The Hollies’ 1967 hit song, “Carrie-Anne.” Moss lived with her mother in Vancouver as a child. At the age of eleven, she joined the Vancouver children’s musical theatre and later went on to tour Europe with the Magee Secondary School Choir in her senior year. She attended high school with Gil Bellows. She enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena upon her return. In 1985, she left Vancouver for Toronto and became a model. This career took her to Japan and Spain in the late 1980s.
Career
While in Spain, she landed a role in the drama series Dark Justice, her first television appearance. She moved from Barcelona to Los Angeles, California with the series in 1992. She starred in FOX’s short-lived primetime soap opera Models Inc., a spin-off of Melrose Place, as one of the models. Her big breakthrough came when she was chosen to play the latex-clad hacker Trinity in the 1999 box office success The Matrix. She reprised the role of Trinity in two sequels as well as providing voice-overs for video game and animated spin-offs of the film. (Coincidentally, she had previously co-starred in an unrelated made-in-Canada television series also entitled Matrix.)
Following the release of the The Matrix, Moss was snapped up by some of Hollywood’s most prominent producers for starring roles in four films. First, audiences saw her star opposite Burt Reynolds and Richard Dreyfuss in the Disney mobster comedy The Crew for producers Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson. Then they saw her star with Val Kilmer in Red Planet for Warner Bros. for producer Mark Canton. She then co-starred opposite Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Dame Judi Dench in Miramax’s Oscar-nominated film Chocolat for director Lasse Hallstrom and producer David Brown. Next, she starred with Guy Pearce in the critically acclaimed independent thriller Memento for which Carrie-Anne earned an Independent Spirit Award for her performance.
Personal life
Moss married fellow actor Steven Roy in 1999. They have two sons, one born at the end of 2003 and the second born in November 2005. Moss, very keen to protect her and her family’s privacy, has only revealed her older son’s name, Owen.
Moss’s best friend is actress Maria Bello, who is the godmother of Moss’s older son.
Awards and recognition
- 2007: Genie Award, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Snow Cake
- 2002: Independent Spirit Award, Best Supporting Actress for Memento
Filmography (selected)
Films
- Hanging Out Hooking Up Falling in Love (2008)
- Fireflies in the Garden (2008)
- Normal (2007)
- Disturbia (2007)
- Fido (2006)
- Mini’s First Time (2006)
- Snow Cake (2006)
- The Chumscrubber (2005)
- Sledge: The Untold Story (2005)
- Suspect Zero (2004)
- The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
- Kid’s Story (2003)
- Enter the Matrix (2003)
- The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
- A Detective Story (2003)
- The Animatrix (2003) (V)
- Chocolat (2000)
- Red Planet (2000)
- Memento (2000)
- The Crew (2000)
- The Matrix (1999)
- New Blood (1999)
- Lethal Tender (1997)
- The Secret Life of Algernon (1997)
- Sabotage (1996)
- 364 Girls a Year (1996)
- Toughguy (1995)
- The Soft Kill (1994)
Television
- Pretty/Handsome (2008)
- Suspect (2007)
- Viper (1997)
- F/X: The Series (1996-1997)
- Spider-Man (1996)
- Due South (1996)
- Nowhere Man (1995)
- Models Inc. (1994-1995)
- Baywatch (1994)
- L.A. Law (1993)
- Silk Stalkings(1993)
- Matrix (1993)
- Dark Justice (1991-1993)
- Street Justice (1991-1993)
- Doorways (1993)
- Flashfire (1993)
- Forever Knight (1992)
- The Hat Squad (1992)
- Down the Shore (1992)
- Nightmare Cafe (1992)
- The Hitchhiker (1989)