Alicia Roanne Witt (born August 21, 1975) is an
American film, stage and television actress.
Biography
Early life
Witt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to Diane, a junior high school reading teacher, and
Robert Witt, a science teacher and photographer.[1] She has
a brother, Ian. Witt was discovered by David Lynch when she appeared on the television show
That's Incredible! in 1980; she had recited Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He cast her in the movie
Dune (1984), where she played Paul Atreides'
young sister Alia Atreides. Afterwards, she left Hollywood to concentrate on her studies
and music. She was home schooled by her parents. She studied piano at Boston University and won several national and international classical piano competitions, including
the "Bartok-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition".
At age fourteen, Witt earned her high school diploma. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Hollywood with her mother (who was
noted from 1988-93 in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest hair)
to pursue a career as a full-time actress. Soon, David Lynch, to whom she refers as a mentor,
created the role of Gersten Hayward especially for her in his successful series
Twin Peaks. He cast her again in Blackout, a segment in his short-lived
HBO series Hotel Room. That was the last collaboration
between the two for a while.
Adult career
During this time, Witt supported herself by playing piano at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She went on to play small
parts in Mike Figgis' Liebestraum (in which her brother Ian also appears), the
Gen-X drama Bodies, Rest & Motion and the TV movie The Disappearance of Vonnie. In 1994, Witt landed her first
lead role in a film, playing a disturbed teenager named Bonnie in Fun. She received the Special Jury Recognition
Award at the Sundance Festival and was nominated for Best Actress at the
Independent Spirit Awards. This performance made Madonna want Witt to be cast as her witch-lover in the first segment The missing ingredient
of Four Rooms.
Witt was introduced to a larger audience playing the role of Zoey Woodbine, daughter of actress Cybill Shepherd's character in the sitcom Cybill from 1995 to
1998. Between seasons she starred in films: Mr. Holland's Opus,
Alexander Payne's abortion comedy Citizen
Ruth, Passion's Way and Bongwater. After Cybill was
cancelled, Witt received a leading role in the Scream-ish campus-horror Urban
Legend and the animated feature Gen¹³ which was never released because the
studio stopped funding before the completion of the movie.
In 2000, Witt had starring roles on the television shows Ally McBeal and
The Sopranos; the lead role in the comedy Playing Mona Lisa, an
instant-classic turn as an anal porn star in John Waters' Cecil B. Demented, and her stage debut in Robbie Fox's musical The
Gift at the now-closed Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles, in which she
played a high-priced stripper with a disease. In the years following, Witt's acting career slowed down. She had a small part in
Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, which was
intended as a reference to her roles in Dune and Liebestraum. She also played a college graduate who discussed losing her virginity in the experimental
Ten Tiny Love Stories and the trailer-trash girl Barbie in American
Girl, which was released to video in 2005.
She appeared in the 2002 romantic comedy Two Weeks
Notice. In 2003 and 2004, she turned her back on Hollywood and lived primarily in the UK filming The Upside of Anger opposite
Kevin Costner; and she starred as Evelyn in a stage-production of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things. Between the two
projects, she went to South Africa to shoot the German TV movie Kingdom in Twilight which also goes by the name The
Sword of Xanten and The Ring of the Nibelungs. She played Kriemhild in this film
interpretation of the epic poem Das Nibelungenlied, which was released in the US
as Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King. On June
14, 2004, Witt modeled what is believed to be the most expensive hat ever made, for
Christie's auction house in London. The
Champrau d'Amour, designed by Louis Mariette, is valued at $2.7 million (US) and is covered in diamonds. See the hat.
Witt will join the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
for the 2007-08 season as Det. Nola Falacci, a character who will be a temporary
replacement for Julianne Nicholson's character as Nicholson is out on maternity leave.[2]
Filmography
Films
Television
Stage
References
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External links
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