Marielle Heller is an American writer, actress and director, best known for directing the films The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019). In 2020, she rose to fame with Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, in which she played Alma Wheatley. She is also the founder of the production company Defiant By Nature.
Wiki/Biography
Mariel Heller was born on Monday, October 1, 1979 (41 years old in 2020) in Marin County, California, United States. She attended St. Joseph of Our Lady High School in Alameda, California. She was a member of the Alameda Children’s Musical Theater, a performing arts theater in Alameda, where she performed in several plays such as Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte’s Web, and The Sorcerer’s Nephew during her childhood. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After that, she trained for a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After returning to California, she worked as a screenwriter. She also took a six-week crash course in film directing at the Sundance Institute’s Directing and Screenwriting Lab in Utah.
appearance
Height (approximate): 5′ 6″
Hair color: light golden brown
Eye color: Black
Family and Race
Although Mariel Heller’s father was from a Jewish family, neither she nor her husband were observant Jews.
Parents and siblings
Marielle Heller’s father, Steve Heller, is a chiropractor, and her mother, Annie Stiles-Heller, is an artist and art teacher.
Marielle Heller and her parents
She has two siblings, an older brother, Nate Heller, who is a musician and songwriter, and an older sister, Emily Heller, who is a stand-up comedian and writer.
Marielle Heller and her siblings
Relationships, husbands and children
In 2007, Marielle Heller married American comedian, director, actress, and writer Jorma Taccone. The two met in 1999 while studying at UCLA. Her son is named Wylie Red Heller Taccone. In 2020, she gave birth to her second child.
Marielle Heller with her husband and son
Profession
As a Director
After graduating from the University of California, she worked as an actor for eight years. In 2015, Marielle Heller made her directorial debut with the film “Diary of a Teenage Girl”, which received critical acclaim and was named the Best Debut at the 2016 Independent Spirit Awards.
In 2018, she directed her second film, Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Memoirs of a Literary Forger, which was a huge success at the Telluride Film Festival. The film was based on the memoirs of con man Lee Israel, a celebrity biographer who fell into trouble and began forging letters from deceased celebrities such as Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman. In 2019, she directed the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
As an actress
Marielle Heller made her television debut with a guest appearance as a party person in White Power (2001). After that, she appeared in various shows such as The Little People (2002), All Hearts and Minds (2008), Single Dad (2009), etc. In 2010, Marielle Heller made her film debut in MacGruber, where she played the role of Cloki. Later, she appeared in various films such as A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014), Paper Anchors (2016), Popstar: Non-Stop (2016), etc. In 2020, Marielle Heller made her digital debut in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, where she played the breakthrough role of Alma Wheatley.
Awards/Honors
- The film “Diary of a Young Girl” (2015) won the Zurich Film Festival International Feature Film Award (2015)
- The film “Diary of a Teenage Girl” (2015) won the Best International Feature Film Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (2015)
- Boston Society of Film Critics Award (2015) for Best New Filmmaker for The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
- Film Independent Spirit Award (2016) for The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
Independent Spirit Awards (2016)
- Won the Best Director Award at the FEST International Film Festival (2016) for the film “Diary of a Young Girl” (2015)
- Winner of the Best Feature Film Award at the Winnipeg Real to Reel Film Festival (2020) for the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (2019)
Facts/Trivia
- In 2006, Mariel Heller’s sister gave her a copy of The Diary of a Teenage Girl for Christmas. Heller was so captivated by novelist Phoebe Gloeckner’s description of raw emotions in The Diary of a Teenage Girl that she decided to acquire the stage rights. In 2010, after acquiring the stage rights, Heller produced an Off-Broadway multimedia play in which she played the title role of Minnie, a 15-year-old girl who begins a relationship with her mother’s 35-year-old boyfriend. The play was produced at the 3LD Center for Arts and Technology in Manhattan. It then took Heller four years to turn it into a film, and for that, Heller took a six-week crash course in film directing at the Sundance Institute’s Directing and Screenwriting Lab in Utah.
- Marielle Heller has also written scripts for many works, including the Disney film “Traitor X”, the ABC pilot “The Big Apple”
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education