Erika Christensen life and biography

Erika Jane Christensen is an American actress whose film appearances include Traffic (2000), Swimfan (2002), How to Rob a Bank (2007), and The Perfect Score (2004), among others. She also co-starred in the short-lived drama Six Degrees on ABC. She is currently co-starring in the 2010 television series Parenthood as Julia Braverman-Graham.

Erika Christensen was born in Seattle, Washington on August 19, 1982. There she started her education in the Montessori school system until she moved to Los Angeles with her family at the age of four. She then entered the Delphi Academy and gravitated to an artist's career at an early age. At eleven Erika started singing, dancing and acting with professional children's theatre groups as well as volunteering to perform for foster family events and community groups. Within a year, Erika had performed in hundreds of shows throughout Southern California and in many venues including The Serendipity Theatre Company and the Pasadena Dance Theatre. At the age of twelve Erika declared her life-long goal to be an actor. She immediately started working professionally and enrolled in a school that allowed her to continue her academic studies while working on film sets.
At thirteen, she landed the coveted role of "Karen", Wally Cleaver's girlfriend in Universal Picture's feature film Leave It To Beaver. Her performance was critically noted for the chemistry she brought to the character.

Erika graduated from the Voyager Charter School at the age of sixteen with a 4.0 grade average at the top of her class of 1998. She continued to hone her skills by performing in popular television shows and gravitated to more dramatic roles and was nominated for the Best Performance by a Young Actress in a TV Series Drama Award by the Hollywood Reporter.

Then at seventeen, Erika stunned audiences as Michael Douglas' drug addicted daughter in Steven Soderbergh's Oscar and Golden Globe winning film, Traffic. Erika had never taken drugs herself, so she turned to the drug rehabilitation group Narconon to research her role. Her performance was disturbingly real and she, along with the rest of the cast, received the prestigious Screen Actor's Guild Award for their work. Erika individually received the Movieline Award for "Standout Performance" and MTV's "Breakthrough Performance Female" Award for her role.
Since Traffic, Erika has played the daughter of an ex-groupie [Susan Sarandon], in Fox Searchlight's, The Banger Sisters costarring Goldie Hawn and Geoffrey Rush. She also starred in the 20th Century Fox film Swimfan which debuted as #1 at the box office and in which she reprises a classic femme fatale role in a love triangle, and in Paramount Pictures The Perfect Score. In 2004 Erika made her screen singing debut playing the role that was imortalized in Emily Bronte's book Wuthering Heights as Cate Earnshaw in MTV's Television adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Films to be released in 2004 and 2005 include Riding the Bullet, a thriller written by Stephen King and starring Cliff Robertson, David Arquette and Jonathan Jackson plus The Sisters a modernization of Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters. The Three Sisters are played by Maria Bello, Mary Stuart Masterson and Erika Christensen. The ensemble cast also includes Eric McCormack, Chris O'Donnell, Tony Goldwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Elizabeth Banks and Rip Torn.

Also to be released in 2004 is The Upside of Anger, staring Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Evan Rachel Woods, Keri Russell and Alicia Whit. The Upside of Anger is a family drama about a mother (Allen) and her four strong-willed daughters (Christensen, Woods, Russell and Witt) who must suddenly deal with life without a husband and father. Costner plays a former baseball player who is a friend of the family. Erika's brother Dane also makes his feature film debut in The Upside of Anger.

Erika currently resides in Los Angeles.

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