Biography for
Kelli Garner More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

11 April 1984, Bakersfield, California, USA

Birth Name

Kelli Brianne Garner

Height

5' 5½" (1.66 m)

Mini Biography

Kelli Garner was born in Bakersfield, grew up in Thousand Oaks, and currently resides in Calabasas, California. She began her career when she was discovered at a friends Bar Mitzvah, and made her film debut at age 16 in director Mike Mills's short Architecture of Reassurance (1999), a Sundance Film Festival entry. Her performance captured the attention of director Larry Clark (Kids (1995)), who cast her in her first feature film, in the role of the drug-addicted teen, Heather Swallers, in the controversial docudrama Bully (2001), establishing Kelli as a fiery young talent.

After sharpening her teeth on television and independent films, the edgy young actress earned a part as the 1940's Hollywood ingénue (opposite Leonardo DiCaprio) in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004) making her Moviefone's Rising Star. Soon after, she reunited with Mike Mills in his 2005 Sundance Film Festival hit Thumbsucker (2005), and proved her ability to shine in comedy, and handle her first leading role, starring opposite Tommy Lee Jones in Man of the House (2005/I).

Kelli just recently received rave reviews in New York for her Off-Broadway performance in "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead". In her spare time, she enjoys playing the guitar and writing songs. With her multi-talents, winning smile, and on screen charm, Kelli is most definitely a breakout star waiting to happen.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

Personal Quotes

Suddenly, I'm 14 years old at a friend's bar mitzvah, and I'm doing a limbo dance in a really short skirt. Afterwards, this guy comes up to me and says, 'Well, aren't you cute,' and he gives me his card. Turns out he was in the film business, and six months later I was doing TV adverts and trying out for movies.

OK, sure, I have a body. I've had one since I was 16. But the attention it brings me, in life as well as in the industry, makes me really uncomfortable.

I'm mostly cast as the Lolita type, either a blonde bombshell Lolita, or the girl-with-black-hair-who-smokes-weed Lolita. Either way, I'm inevitably the sexpot.

Hollywood can be an ugly place, and it can do ugly things to you. I want to avoid that side of it as much as possible, and I also want to do so much more with my life than just act. Like travel, read books, open my own bakery.

I really feel with this film that I've been able to show my soul rather than my body. And that's a big relief. (On her role as the titular Real Girl in Lars and the Real Girl.)

Where Are They Now

(November 2005) Made an appearance as the girlfriend in the Green Day video "Jesus of Suburbia"

(December 2005) Playing "Tricia" in the Off-Broadway play, "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead", at the Century Center for the Performing Arts (New York, NY).

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