Mili Avital

A beautiful Israeli import with dark hair and flashing eyes, Mili Avital was a celebrated performer in her native land, winning an Israeli Academy Award at age eighteen before moving to New York to study acting and try her hand in the United States market. With a demo reel in Hebrew and somewhat tentative English skills, Avital nonetheless quickly landed her first starring role after being discovered while waitressing on Manhattan's West Side. She was cast as the female lead in Roland Emmerich's sci-fi epic "Stargate" (1994), a role that would win the young actress much attention from the start. Working steadily throughout the mid- to late-1990s, Avital was featured alongside Johnny Depp in Jim Jarmusch's stylized Western "Dead Man" (1995) and took a starring role opposite Johnathon Schaech as a woman wishing to terminate her pregnancy who is stalked by the mentally unstable would-be father in the HBO-premiered disturbing thriller "Invasion of Privacy" (1996). In 1997 she had a smaller role in the Wim Wenders-directed drama "The End of Violence" and finally followed up with some lighter fare, starring as a woman dating one man (David Schwimmer) but possibly in love with his friend (Jason Lee) in the romantic comedy "Kissing a Fool" (1998), jump-starting her off screen romance with Schwimmer. A role in the independent drama "Animals" cast the actress as an American from the deep South, an accent she tackled with gusto. She was next featured in the independent romance "The Young Girl and the Monsoon" (1999).