Katherine Moennig - Feature Forecast Actress

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Katherine Moennig

"My biggest challenge is trust, and really believing that trust, in letting things just happen personally and professionally and trust with myself. But I'm getting better at it."

Date of Birth: December 29, 1976

Birthplace: Philadelphia

Katherine is widely known for playing a lesbian character on the Showtime series The L Word. The show has been compared to Queer as Folk for its honest and upfront approach to homosexuality. Katherine had previous stage and screen acting experience, but The L Word has propelled her into celebrity.

Katherine Moennig, a beauty in her late 20s, has the acting chops to back up her looks. She's got the look of the girl-next-door's slightly older, sexier sister and her success in television will keep her under our gaze for quite some time. It also doesn't hurt that she seems a little naughty.

Katherine Sian Moennig was born on December 29, 1976. She grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her father, a violin maker, and her mother, a Broadway dancer. Katherine was born into an extended family of industry professionals. She is first cousins with Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner is her aunt. Katherine grew up surrounded by the entertainment industry and pursued acting from an early age.

Her first acting role came at age 10 in a Children's Theatre Workshop presentation of Winnie the Pooh. The experience led Katherine and a friend to write an improvised production of the story and perform it at the Free Library in Philadelphia. While in high school, Katherine kept the desire to pursue acting on the backburner until her studies were complete.

In 1994, at the age of 18, Katherine moved to New York City to make her call to acting official; she entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

After graduation, Katherine earned an apprenticeship at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Throughout her two seasons with the festival, she appeared in plays such as The Theory of Total Blame, Morning in the City and As You Like It, in which she starred with her cousin, Gwyneth Paltrow. Her theatre experience was early preparation for her work in film and television. In 1999, she landed her first gig: the starring role in the Our Lady Peace music video "Is Anybody Home?"

In early 2000, Katherine Moennig made her film debut in The Ice People. It wasn't until July 2000, however, that she received a bigger audience by accepting a role on the WB's Young Americans. Katherine played Jacqueline "Jake" Pratt, a girl pretending to be a boy in order to attend a prestigious all-boys school; the series also featured Kate Bosworth and Ian Somerhalder. After only two months on the air, however, the show was cancelled.

In 2001, Katherine took roles in the films Slo-Mo and Love the Hard Way, and appeared in the feature film The Shipping News with Julianne Moore and Kevin Spacey. Although she worked with major celebrities on this film, Katherine received little recognition for her part. In October 2001, she made a guest appearance on Law & Order, but when the year came to an end, she was out of work. Katherine spent 2002 looking for promising acting roles, but found nothing.

In 2003, Katherine made another guest appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit . She also penned a deal to play the role of Shane McCutcheon, a lesbian on the Showtime series The L Word.

The show propelled Moennig and fellow actresses Jennifer Beals, Sarah Shahi and Mia Kirshner into the spotlight when it first aired in 2004. The series' lesbian subject matter made it watercooler material, and the hype has yet to fade.

In 2006, Katherine will appear in Art School Confidential with top players Anjelica Huston and John Malkovich.

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