Kelli Brianne Garner[1] (born April 11, 1984)[2] is an American actress who has appeared in a variety of independent and mainstream films, television, and theater.
Garner was born on April 11, 1984, in Bakersfield, California,[2] and spent her early childhood in Newbury Park before her family settled in Thousand Oaks.[3] Although she described herself as a "shy" young girl, Garner caught the attention of a talent agent while attending a friend's bar mitzvah, and was subsequently cast in an Eggo commercial.[3] While a student at Thousand Oaks High School, Garner was cast in director Mike Mills's short film Architecture of Assurance in 2000.[3] Garner was a talented soccer player in high school, and had planned on pursuing it as a career before she began working as an actress.[3]
Career
Garner had appeared in several short films before being cast in a supporting role in the television film Time Share in 2000. In 2001, she was cast in Larry Clark's controversial crime thriller Bully (2001), in which she portrayed Heather Swallers, a teenager who participates with her friends in an orchestrated murder of one of their peers; Clark cast Garner in the film after seeing her performance in Mike Mills's short Architecture of Assurance.[3] The film, which was based on the real-life 1993 murder of Bobby Kent, received critical acclaim.[4]
Her next major role came at age 19 in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), in which she portrayed actress Faith Domergue, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes.[5] According to Garner, she wore brown contact lenses to her audition to further embody Domergue; she has said that she tripped and fell when entering the audition room in front of director Scorsese and star DiCaprio.[6] "I thought I'd lost the job," she recalled, "But I think it was that moment that made it work [because] the character was someone who was trying to be much older than she was."[6] The following year, she appeared in the comedy Man of the House,[7] and the independent teen drama Thumbsucker (2005), opposite Lou Taylor Pucci and Vince Vaughn. She had supporting parts in the independent films London (2005) and Dreamland (2006), the latter of which earned her a Best Actress award at Method Fest Independent Film Festival, shared with co-star Agnes Bruckner.[citation needed]
In 2007, Garner appeared in a lead role in the critically acclaimed drama Lars and the Real Girl as Ryan Gosling's co-worker and love interest.[9] In 2008, she appeared again onstage in an off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull opposite Dianne Wiest, as Nina.[3] Ben Brantley of The New York Times, though critical of some elements of the production, praised Garner's performance among her younger co-stars.[10] She had a minor part in the comedy Taking Woodstock (2009), and in the Disney film G-Force (2009), which she followed with a supporting role in Going the Distance (2010), opposite Drew Barrymore. Between 2011 and 2012, she had a main role as Kate Cameron on the period series Pan Am, opposite Christina Ricci.[11]
