Mia Kirshner displayed great emotional range in roles that often called on her to perform sexually charged scenes in films like "Love and Human Remains" (1993) as a young dominatrix and in "Exotica" (1994) as a teen stripper with a past.
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It was her role as Jenny Schecter, a sexually ambiguous and self-indulgent woman, on the groundbreaking series "The L Word" (Showtime, 2004-09) that made Kirshner a star. Drawing upon her many experiences portraying dysfunctional.
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She managed to convey a real sadness and fragility, proving she was undoubtedly one of the best and most intense actresses of her time. A family of Holocaust survivors; her journalist father was born in a displaced camp in Germany and her mother was a Bulgarian-Jewish refugee.
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She started taking on highly sexualized, bad-girl types that she would play throughout her career. She portrayed a young clairvoyant dominatrix in the dark comedy "Love and Human Remains" before her memorable turn as a bisexual teen stripper in Atom Egoyan's "Exotica," a role that called on the actress to convey a maturity well beyond her years.