Katie Boland

Canadian actress Katie Boland progressed from juvenile roles on television series in her native country to roles in dramatic fare like Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" (2012) and "Reign" (The CW, 2013- ) and a second career as a fiction writer and television producer. Born Katherine Lenora Boland on February 14, 1988 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, she was the daughter of author and journalist Kevin Boland and film and television director Gail Harvey. Her mother's involvement in the entertainment industry spurred her interest in acting, and Boland made her screen debut in the 1997 TV movie "The Third Twin" (CBS). She was then cast on the popular children's puppet series "Noddy" (PBS/BBC One/TV Ontario, 1998-2000) and in numerous made-for-TV features, including "Striking Poses" (1999), which marked her first role in a project directed by her mother. Boland then joined her second children's series, "The Zach Files" (YTV/Fox Family, 2000-2004) before tackling weightier fare in "The Salem Witch Trials" (CBS, 2002), which cast her as the leader of a group of Puritan girls who accuse their elders of witchcraft. The success of the project, which earned Boland a Young Artist Award in 2004, led to more dramatic fare, including her first starring role in "Some Things That Stay" (2004), an independent film directed by her mother, and "Adoration" (2008) for director Atom Egoyan. Boland remained remarkably busy in the second decade of the new millennium, tackling roles in Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" (2012) as well as numerous Canadian-lensed TV films and series, including The CW's "Reign." During this period, Boland also penned numerous short stories and adapted one as a short film, "Sweetieface" (2013), which played numerous festivals. The following year, she drew from a collection of her personal essays to develop the web series "Long Story, Short" (Hulu, 2014- ), which concerned the lives of young people as they join the adult world. She continued to appear in features and television during this busy period, most notably in the Chet Baker biopic "Born to Be Blue" (2015) opposite Ethan Hawke.