Anna Chlumsky is an American actress best known for playing Vada Sultenfuss in the 1991 movie
My GirlMy Girl is a 1991 drama film directed by Howard Zieff and written by Laurice Elehwany. The film depicts the coming-of-age of a young girl who faces many different emotional highs and lows and stars Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis in their first film together since 1983's Trading Places. The film...
and the 1994 sequel
My Girl 2My Girl 2 is a 1994 comedy-drama film starring Anna Chlumsky, Dan Aykroyd, Christine Ebersole, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Masur, Austin O'Brien, and Roland Thomson. This was a sequel to 1991's My Girl.-Plot:...
. Her father, Frank Chlumsky, is an instructor in the culinary program at
Kendall College-Summary:Kendall College in Chicago is a for-profit college offering programs in hospitality management, culinary arts, business, and early childhood education. Kendall College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools...
in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Her surname is
PolishPolish may refer to:* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe* Polish language* Poles, people from Poland* Polish * Polish cuisinePolish may refer to:...
in origin.
Anna Chlumsky is an American actress best known for playing Vada Sultenfuss in the 1991 movie
My GirlMy Girl is a 1991 drama film directed by Howard Zieff and written by Laurice Elehwany. The film depicts the coming-of-age of a young girl who faces many different emotional highs and lows and stars Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis in their first film together since 1983's Trading Places. The film...
and the 1994 sequel
My Girl 2My Girl 2 is a 1994 comedy-drama film starring Anna Chlumsky, Dan Aykroyd, Christine Ebersole, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Masur, Austin O'Brien, and Roland Thomson. This was a sequel to 1991's My Girl.-Plot:...
. Her father, Frank Chlumsky, is an instructor in the culinary program at
Kendall College-Summary:Kendall College in Chicago is a for-profit college offering programs in hospitality management, culinary arts, business, and early childhood education. Kendall College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools...
in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Her surname is
PolishPolish may refer to:* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe* Polish language* Poles, people from Poland* Polish * Polish cuisinePolish may refer to:...
in origin.
Child acting career
Chlumsky entered show business at an early age, modeling with her mother in an advertising campaign. Her roles in
My GirlMy Girl is a 1991 drama film directed by Howard Zieff and written by Laurice Elehwany. The film depicts the coming-of-age of a young girl who faces many different emotional highs and lows and stars Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis in their first film together since 1983's Trading Places. The film...
and
My Girl 2My Girl 2 is a 1994 comedy-drama film starring Anna Chlumsky, Dan Aykroyd, Christine Ebersole, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Masur, Austin O'Brien, and Roland Thomson. This was a sequel to 1991's My Girl.-Plot:...
brought her fame.
She was in
Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear MountainGold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain is a 1995 drama film starring Christina Ricci and Anna Chlumsky. It takes place in the fictional town of Wheaton, Washington, but was filmed on location in Norfolk, Virginia, Vancouver, B.C, Nelson, B.C, Pleasant Grove, Utah, and Pemberton, B.C....
with
Christina RicciChristina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values , and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper...
, and screen tested for the part of Lex in
Jurassic ParkJurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
, which eventually went to
Ariana RichardsAriana Clarice Richards is an American actress and professional painter. She is best known for her roles as Mindy Sterngood in Tremors, Lex Murphy in the film Jurassic Park, and as Carol Wetherby in the film Prancer....
.
Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
expressed serious interest in
My Girl 3 (also known as
Still My Girl) and a script has been in development since 2003, according to series costar
Dan AykroydDaniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, CM is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, winemaker and ufologist. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.-Early...
. Aykroyd revealed in media outlets that Columbia was attempting to sign Chlumsky for the role. The project is
still in developmentIn the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
, with no updates in seven years.
Hiatus from acting and return
Chlumsky never intended acting to be her lifelong career. As a child she considered working with horses or in paleontology. Once she reached adulthood, roles became scarce and she began to move away from acting. She attended the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, majoring in International Studies, and graduated with a BA in 2002. During this time she ceased paying dues to the
Screen Actors GuildThe Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
. After graduation she worked as a fact-checker for the
Zagat SurveyZagat Survey was established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979 as a way to collect and correlate the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering New York City, the Zagats surveyed their friends. As of 2005, the Zagat Survey included 70 cities, with reviews based on the input of...
and served as an editorial assistant for a
HarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
science fiction-fantasy imprint. She came to find this work unsatisfying and decided she wanted to return to acting. She went to the Atlantic Acting School in
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to receive more formal training (in her youth she deemed herself "a natural," so had not had as much formal training ) and now intends to remain an actor.
Adult career
Chlumsky appeared on the March 8, 2007, episode of
30 Rock30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
, called "The Fighting Irish", as Liz Lemler. She appeared as Mary Calvin in an episode of the
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
drama series
Law & OrderLaw & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
(Season 17, Episode 12) first airing on January 12, 2007, and as Lisa Klein in an episode (Season 20, Episode 16) first airing March 15, 2010. She was in three episodes of the
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
dramedy
CupidCupid is a television series that premiered on ABC on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 10:02 PM Eastern/9:02 PM Central. The series is a revival of sorts of the network's 1998 series of the same name, changing its primary setting from Chicago to New York City....
.
Chlumsky starred in the Off Broadway production of
Unconditional by Brett C. Leonard at The Public Theater. It was produced by
Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
's theater group,
LAByrinth Theater CompanyLAByrinth Theater Company is a non-profit, Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City.An inclusive, multicultural ensemble of almost 100 established and emerging theater artists led by Artistic Directors Stephen Adly Guirgis, Mimi O'Donnell and Yul Vasquez, LAByrinth Theater Company...
, which opened on February 2008. She also starred in
Lanford WilsonLanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
's
Balm in GileadBalm in Gilead is a 1965 play written by American playwright Lanford Wilson.-Dramatic structure:Wilson's first full-length effort, Balm in Gilead centers on a cafe frequented by heroin addicts, prostitutes and thieves...
in November 2005 at the American Theatre of Actors in New York City.
She appeared in the
BBC FilmsBBC Films is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including An Education, StreetDance 3D, Fish Tank, Stage Beauty, A Cock and Bull Story, Nativity! and Match Point.It aims to make strong British films with...
political satire
In The LoopIn the Loop is a 2009 British satirical black comedy film directed by Armando Iannucci. It is based on the BBC Television series The Thick of It satirising Anglo-American politics in the 21st century and the Invasion of Iraq...
, costarring with
James GandolfiniJames J. Gandolfini, Jr. is an Italian American actor. He is best known for his role as Tony Soprano in the HBO TV series The Sopranos, about a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia...
. She plays Liza, a State Department assistant in the movie, directed by
Armando IannucciArmando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish comedian, satirist, writer, director, performer and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Oxford University and left graduate work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy....
.
On December 3, 2010, it was announced that Chlumsky would play the chief of staff of
Julia Louis-DreyfusJulia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus is an American actress and comedienne, widely known for her sitcom roles in Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine....
's vice president in
Veep.
Personal life
Chlumsky graduated from Walther Lutheran High School, and in 2002 from the University of Chicago. In October 2007, she announced her engagement to Shaun So. They were married on March 8, 2008. "Shaun's family is
ChineseThe term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
, and my family is
CatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
. So we're going to do a fusion of the two cultural traditions," Chlumsky said at the Condé Nast Traveler Readers Choice Awards.
Film & Television Credits
| Year |
Title |
Role |
Notes |
| 1989 |
Uncle Buck Uncle Buck is a 1989 John Hughes comedy film starring John Candy, Amy Madigan, Jean Louisa Kelly, Gaby Hoffman, and Macaulay Culkin, and co-stars Jay Underwood and Laurie Metcalf.-Plot:Bob Russell Uncle Buck is a 1989 John Hughes comedy film starring John Candy, Amy Madigan, Jean Louisa Kelly, Gaby...
|
School Child |
Film |
| 1991 |
My GirlMy Girl is a 1991 drama film directed by Howard Zieff and written by Laurice Elehwany. The film depicts the coming-of-age of a young girl who faces many different emotional highs and lows and stars Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis in their first film together since 1983's Trading Places. The film...
|
Vada Margaret Sultenfuss |
Film |
| 1994 |
My Girl 2 My Girl 2 is a 1994 comedy-drama film starring Anna Chlumsky, Dan Aykroyd, Christine Ebersole, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Masur, Austin O'Brien, and Roland Thomson. This was a sequel to 1991's My Girl.-Plot:...
|
Vada Sultenfuss |
Film |
| 1994 |
Trading Mom |
Elizabeth Martin |
Film |
| 1995 |
Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain is a 1995 drama film starring Christina Ricci and Anna Chlumsky. It takes place in the fictional town of Wheaton, Washington, but was filmed on location in Norfolk, Virginia, Vancouver, B.C, Nelson, B.C, Pleasant Grove, Utah, and Pemberton, B.C....
|
Jody Salerno |
Film |
| 1997 |
A Child's Wish A Child's Wish is a fact based made for television movie based on actual events. John Ritter stars as a father of an ill 16 year old daughter .-Plot:...
|
Missy Chandler |
TV movie |
| 1997 |
Miracle in the Woods |
Gina Weatherby / Field Pea |
TV movie |
| 1998 |
Cupid |
Jill |
TV episode: "Meat Market" |
| 1998 |
Early Edition Early Edition is an American television series that aired on CBS from September 28, 1996 to May 27, 2000. Set in the city of Chicago, Illinois, it follows the adventures of a man who mysteriously receives each Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day before it is actually published, and who uses this...
|
Megan Clark |
TV episode: "Teen Angels" |
| 2005 |
Wait |
Cara |
Film (short) |
| 2007 |
Eight Days a Week "Eight Days a Week" is a song by The Beatles.Eight Days a Week may also refer to:*Eight Days a Week , a 1999 comedy film*Eight Days a Week , a CW sitcom that never aired...
|
Riley McGann |
TV series (unaired) |
| 2007 |
30 Rock 30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
|
Liz Lemler |
TV episode: "The Fighting Irish"The Fighting Irish" is the seventeenth episode of NBC's first season of 30 Rock. It was written by one of the season's co-executive producers, Jack Burditt and it was directed by Dennie Gordon. It aired on March 8, 2007 in the United States...
" |
| 2007 |
Law & OrderLaw & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
|
Mary Calvin |
TV episode: "Charity Case" |
| 2007 |
Blood Car Blood Car is a 2007 black comedy film set in the not-too-distant future where gasoline prices have become exorbitant . Things take a turn for the worse when a kindergarten teacher invents a car that runs on a different fuel source: blood.-Plot:Archie Andrews is a vegan kindergarten teacher who...
|
Lorraine |
Film |
| 2008 |
Eavesdrop -Plot:The film is centered on an old world Manhattan cafe during a busy brunch shift. A number of patrons populate the cafe, with patrons at each table representing a different genre of film, such as romantic comedy and tragedy...
|
Chelsea |
Film |
| 2009 |
House Rules |
Scotty Fisher |
TV movie |
| 2009 |
In the LoopIn the Loop is a 2009 British satirical black comedy film directed by Armando Iannucci. It is based on the BBC Television series The Thick of It satirising Anglo-American politics in the 21st century and the Invasion of Iraq...
|
Liza Weld |
Film |
| 2009 |
The Good Guy The Good Guy is a 2009 romantic comedy film directed by Julio DePietro starring Alexis Bledel, Scott Porter, and Bryan Greenberg.-Plot:Ambitious young Manhattanite and urban conservationist Beth wants it all: a good job, good friends, and a good guy to share the city with. Of course that last one...
|
Lisa |
Film |
| 2009 |
CupidCupid is a television series that premiered on ABC on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 10:02 PM Eastern/9:02 PM Central. The series is a revival of sorts of the network's 1998 series of the same name, changing its primary setting from Chicago to New York City....
|
Josie |
TV episodes: "My Fair Masseuse", "Shipping Out", "The Tommy Brown Affair", "The Great Right Hope" |
| 2009 |
My Sweet Misery |
Chloe |
Film |
| 2009 |
12 Men of Christmas |
Jan Lucas |
TV movie |
| 2010 |
The Quinn-tuplets |
Rachel Quinn |
TV movie (unaired) |
| 2010 |
Civil Unions: A Love Story |
n/a |
Film (short) |
| 2010 |
Law & OrderLaw & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
|
Lisa Klein/Mary Calvin |
TV episodes: "Innocence "Innocence" is the sixteenth episode of the twentieth season of NBC's long-running legal drama Law & Order.-Plot:The detectives arrest a man who is tried and found guilty of killing a gay man as a hate crime...
", "Charity Case" |
| 2010 |
Covert Affairs Covert Affairs is a USA Network television series starring Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham. The one-hour drama premiered on Tuesday, July 13, 2010. The show concluded its first season on September 14, 2010 and was renewed for a second season on August 19, 2010. The second season began airing on...
|
Vivian Long |
TV episode: "I Can't Quit You Baby" |
| 2011 |
Lights Out Lights Out is an American television boxing drama series from the FX network in the United States. It stars Holt McCallany as Patrick "Lights" Leary, a New Jersey native, and former heavyweight champion boxer who is considering a comeback. The series premiered on January 11, 2011 at 10 pm ET/PT. On...
|
Charlie |
TV episodes: "Headgames", "The Shot" |
| 2011 |
Three Weeks, Three Kids |
Jennifer Mills |
TV Movie |
| 2011 |
The Pill |
Nelly |
Film (Post-production) |
| 2011 |
White Collar White Collar is a USA Network television series created by Jeff Eastin, starring Matt Bomer as con-man Neal Caffrey and Tim DeKay as Special Agent Peter Burke. It premiered on October 23, 2009. In December 2009, White Collar was renewed for a second season that began on July 13, 2010...
|
Agent Melissa Matthews |
TV episodes: "Where There's a Will", "Countdown" |
| 2012 |
Bert and Arnie's Guide to Friendship |
Sabrina |
Film (post-production) |
| 2012 |
Veep |
Amy |
TV series Pilot (filming) |
| 2013 |
Sam |
Margaret |
Film (Pre-production) |
External links