Brit Marling

Brit Marling
Marling at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014
Born	Brit Heyworth Marling (1982-08-07) August 7, 1982 (age 34) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Alma mater	Georgetown University
Occupation	Actress, screenwriter, film producer
Years active	2007–present
Known for	I Origins, Another Earth, The East

Brit Heyworth Marling (born August 7, 1982) is an American actress, screenwriter and film producer. She first gained recognition in 2004 with the documentary Boxers and Ballerinas and later became a Sundance star with the Searchlight movies Sound of My Voice (2011), Another Earth (2011) and The East (2013) which she co-wrote in addition to playing the lead role. She starred in the 2016 Netflix series The OA, which she co-created with Zal Batmanglij.

Marling was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of property developer parents John and Heidi Marling. She was named "Brit" after her Norwegian maternal great-grandmother. She grew up in Winnetka, Illinois and in Orlando, where she enrolled in the arts program at Dr. Phillips High School. Marling was interested in acting, but her parents encouraged her to focus on academics. She graduated from Georgetown University in 2005 with degrees in economics and studio art, and was her class valedictorian.

At Georgetown, Marling met her long-time collaborators, future directors Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij. Marling spent her junior year summer interning for the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs as an investment analyst. She felt a lack of meaning a life spent there would have and later turned down a job offer from the firm, opting instead to move to Cuba with Mike Cahill to film the documentary Boxers and Ballerinas. The documentary gained Marling recognition in 2004, having co-written the film with Mike Cahill and Nicholas Shumaker and co-directed with Cahill.

In 2005 Marling moved with Cahill and Batmanglij to Los Angeles. Marling went to auditions and was offered roles in horror films, but rejected them. She has stated she "wanted to be able to cast herself in roles that wouldn’t require her to play the typical parts offered to young actresses, the perfunctory girlfriend or a crime victim." She was discovered by talent agent Hylda Queally.