Deborah Unger

Born: May 12 1966
Where: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The actress has quietely impressed in supporting roles in movies including Whispers in the Dark, Crash and as Mel Gibson's wife in Payback.

The daughter of a nuclear scientist and a gynaecologist, she studied psychology and economics at the University of Victoria.

She was the first Canadian to be accepted into the highly-regarded Australian National Institute of Art.

Graduating in 1988, she went on to star alongside Nicole Kidman and Denholm Elliott as one of two Buddhist prisoners in the TV series Bankok Hilton.

She made her big screen debut in the prisoner of war drama Prisoners of the Sun and roles followed in Till There Was You and the thriller Whispers in the Dark.

Unger starred opposite Christopher Lambert in the sci-fi thriller Highlander III: The Sorcerer and as Catherine Ballard in David Cronenberg's controversial Crash.

Subsequent appearances included the drama No Way Home with Tim Roth and opposite Michael Douglas in David Fincher's The Game (she broke her foot during filming).

In 1998, she played Ava Gardner in the TV series The Rat Pack and returned to the big screen in the crime thriller Payback.

Switching to art house she starred alongside Ralph Fiennes in Istvan Szabo's ambitious Sunshine and played alongside Denzel Washington in boxing drama The Hurricane.

Roles followed in the crime thriller The Salton Sea and Catherine Hardwicke's adolescent drama Thirteen.

In 2003, she starred in Nicholas Winding Refn's thriller Fear X and the comedy Hollywood North with Matthew Modine.

Recent work includes the paranormal thriller White Noise with Michael Keaton.