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50 facts about Vera Farmiga |
Vera Farmiga is a well-known actress.
Chances are if you met her recently, it will be in A&E's modern prequel to the Pyscho horror thriller, Bates Motel, where she plays the infamous Norma Bates.
As the daughter of a Ukrainian mother-in-law, Vera never thought she would act, she preferred to play soccer over acting at school.
Eventually, however, she got into acting - and I will probably have more success!
So, before I talk too much and spoil this article for you, let's find out 50 amazing, amazing, amazing facts about Vera Farmiga!
Vera Farmiga is 47 years old and was born on August 6, 1973 in Clifton, New Jersey.
She is 5 ′ 7, (1.7 meters) tall and has natural light brown hair and blue eyes.
She was born to Ukrainian parents, Mykhailo and Luba, and grew up attending a Ukrainian Catholic school.
Vera was the second oldest of seven children.
Her youngest brother Taissa is also a famous actress like her, having played many films but is most famous for her hit work in American Horror Story, in Murder House, Coven and more recently the famous Roanoake.
Vera's father was born in Ukraine but raised in Argentina, was a football player (soccer if you were American) for the Argentina National Team.
As a child, she joined the Ukrainian Girl Scout Team and the Ukrainian folk dance in the Catskills in the summer.
She is even a semi-professional Ukrainian folk dancer in the Syzokryli dance troupe, led by dancer and choreographer Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky.
English is not her native language and she only started learning English when she was 5-6 years old.
When she was growing up, her parents never took part in movies or television, so her becoming an actress never really appeared.
In school, she was a football enthusiast (again, ‘soccer 'if you were American) - like the son on screen in Bates Motel Freddie Highmore.
It wasn't until she was sidelined for the soccer team that she got a role in the school play The Vampire and decided to pursue her new passion for acting by starring in TV dramas at the University.
After graduating from Syracuse University, she did a bit of work in theatrical productions of New York City, before starting to work on Television in the late 1990s. In 1997, she played a role in theater productions.
Before acting professionally, Vera worked in the customer service department for an air conditioning company.
In 1998, she made her big screen debut with the participation of Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix and Anne Heche in the movie Return to Paradise.
In 2004, her performance in the Sundance Film Festival, the movie Down to the Bone surprised audiences.
In 2006, Vera got a role in Martin Scorsese's blockbuster crime thriller The Departed.
In 2008, she played the wife of the Nazi SS Commander in the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas during World War II.
In 2009, she starred alongside George Clooney in Up in the Air, which was praised by critics and colleagues for her work.
In 2011, she made her directorial debut with the film Higher Ground, which featured Taissa's sister's first role.
She was five months pregnant with her daughter Gytta when she completed the film Higher Ground.
Vera returned to work three months after giving birth to a daughter to film the 2012 movie Goats.
In 2013, she starred in the horror hit The Conjuring, as well as the 2016 sequel The Conjuring 2.
She never did a sequel until The Conjuring 2.
In 2013, Vera signed for the role of Norma Bates in A&E's contemporary prequel with the 1960 hit classic, Psycho, and Bates Motel.
She has been married twice, first to French actor Sebastian Roche, and then to keyboardist Deadsy, Renn Hawkey, with whom she remains.
She lives on a farm in upstate New York with husband Renn and two children, son Fynn McDonnell Hawkey and daughter Gytta Lubov Hawkey.
She is an avid gardener and even has three angora goats named Zoshya, Fruzia and Sofika on her farm!
As a child, she had a pet sheep and wanted some when moving to her farm, but sadly there were no available so she used the second close option, goats!
Vera and her husband also own homes in New York, Vancouver and British Columbia, on sub-lease.
She loves to spin wool in her spare time and has a portable wool spinning kit that her husband bought so she can spin between shots.
She also said that if she weren't an actress, she'd be a shepherd girl and go back to college to get her horticultural degree.
While auditioning, Vera read the script and then filmed the video as the character she wanted to play.
It was these videotapes that helped Vera transform into a film.
She was asked by the agency to make a tape that she acted like her agent Tracy Brennan.
Vera is not a huge Hollywood fan for a number of reasons.
One of the reasons Vera plays many indie films is because she disagrees with how Hollywood often assigns narrow roles to women of a certain age and when you look at all the different types of characters she
So it's not surprising she chose not to consciously live in Hollywood, instead living on her farm in upstate New York.
However, making multiple indie films has its downsides.
She is very sorry that she did not win a role in the movie I'm Not There about Bob Dylan by Todd Haynes.
Whenever Vera gets a script she hates, she burns it.
Although she knows that The Departed is what gives her more recognition, she shouldn't have the illusion that her character is a bit bland.
Her sister-in-law, Molly Hawkey, is also an actress and a photographer.
When it comes to her religious beliefs, Vera describes herself as a non-national Christian.
Like her on-screen counterpart Norma Bates, Vera is very good at music, is a skilled pianist and guitarist.
She drives a black Chevrolet Corvette.
As well as speaking fluent English and Ukrainians Vera can speak some French and Spanish.
She is the Executive Producer for Season 5 of Bates Motel.
As of April 2017, Vera has won 19 different awards for her acting throughout her career, including two for her role as Norma Bates in Bates Motel.
Vera is a practitioner of the Japanese martial art Jujitsu, so far has been granted a cam belt.
