Miner is the daughter of director and producer Peter Miner and the granddaughter of director-producer Worthington Miner and actress Frances Fuller.[2][3] She attended New York's Professional Children's School.[4] In a 1993 interview, Miner named Jodie Foster as the actress she most admired, and expressed the hope that she might have the opportunity to tackle a similar range of roles.[2]
In 2001, she starred in Bully. The film was based on the murder of Bobby Kent.[5]Bully received mixed reviews from critics and has a "Rotten" rating of 54% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 91 reviews with an average score of 5.7 out of 10. The film holds a score of 45 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 26 critics indicating 'Mixed or average reviews'.[6] Miner won an award at the Stockholm Film Festival for Best Actress.[7]
In 2005, Miner portrayed a young woman on a journey to discover who she is and why multiple enemies want her dead in the action film Circadian Rhythm. The movie was critically ignored, and was poorly received in its few reviews. One reviewer stated that the film was a "directionless jumble of boring scenes strung together tenuously by a plot that feels like they were making it up as they went along," and that watching the film's allegedly ‘wire-fu’ fight scenes was akin to "being over at a friend's house when they’re getting yelled at by their parents."[8]
From 2009 to 2013, Miner took over the role of Meg, a recurring antagonist and demon in Supernatural. The writers wanted Meg's original actress Nicki Aycox to reprise the role in later seasons, but ultimately cast Miner for storyline purposes. The character was eventually killed off later.[12] Tim Janson of Mania gave Miner's portrayal of Meg a positive review, saying no one played Meg "with such dripping sarcasm as Rachel Miner". He felt she "always adds spice when she appears".[13] Similarly, Diana Steenbergen of IGN
felt Miner played the role "with vicious flair" and "[conveyed] Meg's brutality well, right from the beginning".[14] As time passed, she noted that the actress "has done well taking over the role".[15][16][17] In 2020, Miner returned to Supernatural during the fifteenth season playing the character of a cosmic entity known as the Empty that takes Meg's physical appearance. Miner reappeared later in the season, reprising the role of the Empty.
In 2010, Miner starred alongside James Franco in the Grasshopper segment of Love & Distrust.[18] The next year she was cast as Sgt. Hannah in the horror film 51,[19] which began filming in April 2011 in Louisiana.[20] The film was released in limited theaters as part of "After Dark Originals".[21][22]
Charity work
Since September 2017, Miner has been the executive director of the non-profit organization Random Acts.[23]
Recurring character Won – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress in a Daytime Series (1992, 1994) Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress in a Daytime Series (1993, 1995) Nominated – Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Child Actor (1993, 1994) Nominated – Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Leading Actress in a Drama Series (1995)
^"Your Horoscope: Birthday Star". Montreal Gazette. July 29, 2021. p. A15. ProQuest2566128856. Actress Rachel Miner was born in New York City on this day in 1980. This birthday star has portrayed Meg Masters on the long-running CW series 'Supernatural' since 2009. She has also appeared on episodes of 'Chicago Fire,' Monsters and Fables,' and 'Sons of Anarchy.' On the big screen, Miner's film work includes roles in 'In Their Skin,' 'Frank the Bastard' and 'The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations.'
^ abcReichardt, Nancy M. (November 14, 1993). "Miner's found her golden opportunity". Austin American Statesman. p. 50. ProQuest256338028. Her father is Peter Miner, a longtime director on One Life to Live. [...] 'I've been working with my acting teacher, Karen Anthony, for a long time.' [...] My parents don't dictate to me,' says Miner. 'They don't treat me like a kid. We discuss everything, and they let me make my own decisions.' Perhaps the best example of this "supervised freedom" is the way they dealt with Rachel's decision - at age 9 - to become a vegetarian. 'I love animals and want to work with them when I grow up,' Miner says. 'They give so much; I want to give back. I knew I didn't want to eat them. But my mom was worried I wouldn't get enough protein, so she researched it to see how to do it right.' Miner names Jodie Foster as her favorite actress. She admires Foster because 'you can always tell in Jodie Foster's eyes that she's worked out the whole character's past. It is not as if the character was born when the movie started. I would also like to get to play the variety of parts that she gets to play.'
^Flint, Peter B. (December 20, 1980). "FRANCES FULLER, ACTRESS, IS DEAD; SHE HEADED ACADEMY OF DRAMA: [obituary]". The New York Times. p. B49. ProQuest424026032. Frances Fuller, an actress and former president and director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, died Thursday evening at her West Side home. She was 73 years old. [...] Miss Fuller was president and director of the Academy from 1954 to 1964, continuing as director until 1974. In the last six years, she was co-chairman of the school with her husband, Worthington Miner, the stage director and producer and a pioneer of television drama. [...] Besides her husband, she leaves a son, Peter Miner of Manhattan, who is a television director; two daughters, Margaret Rawson of Brooklyn and Mary Elizabeth Miner of Manhattan, and seven grandchildren.
^ abSaffian, Sarah (July 23, 2001). "Home alone". Us Weekly. pp. 50, 51. ProQuest236457020. Miner met Culkin at New York's Professional Children's School, a private high school geared toward young performers, in 1997. [...] [W]hen she's home in New York, she shares her apartment with three formerly stray cats. A vegetarian since age 9, Miner is passionate about animal rights and has so far rescued and found owners for 16 cats and dogs. 'At one point, I think she had 20 animals - cats, birds, reptiles,' says friend Natalie Portman, who costarred with Miner on Broadway in The Diary of Anne Frank. 'She's really happiest taking care of others.'
^"Bully", Metacritic.com; retrieved November 30, 2014.
^Kilian, Michael (June 14, 2002). "Rachel Miner holds on the child in her". Knight Tribune News Service. p. 1. ProQuest457251808. She won Best Actress award at last year's Stockholm Film Festival for her starring role as a teen-age murderess in the independent true-crime flick "Bully," a film most teens would consider a love story gone wrong but most parents would view as a terrifying horror movie. It's just now out on video, providing Miner with a little more fame, if not so much fortune.
^"Circadian Rhythm". teleport-city.com. November 18, 2010. Retrieved December 21, 2016.
