Mia Kirshner (born January 25, 1975) is a Canadian actress, writer, and social activist. She is known for television roles as Mandy in 24 (2001–2005), as Jenny Schecter in The L Word (2004–2009), as Amanda Grayson in Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2019) and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2023), and as Isobel Flemming in The Vampire Diaries (2010-2011). Her film credits include Love and Human Remains (1993), Exotica (1994), The Crow: City of Angels (1996), Mad City (1997), Not Another Teen Movie (2001), and The Black Dahlia (2006).
Early life
Kirshner was born in Toronto, Ontario, the daughter of Etti (Henrietta), a teacher, and Sheldon Kirshner, a journalist who wrote for The Canadian Jewish News. Kirshner is a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors; her father was born in the displaced persons camp at Bad Reichenhall in Germany in 1946 and met Kirshner's mother, a Bulgarian Jewish refugee, after they emigrated to Israel. Kirshner's paternal grandparents were Polish Jews. Kirshner had a middle class upbringing and attended Forest Hill Collegiate Institute but later graduated from Jarvis Collegiate Institute. Kirshner studied Russian literature and the 20th-century movie industry at McGill University in Montreal. Her younger sister, Lauren Kirshner, a writer, was...More about Mia Kirshner...