Julie Benz

Julie Benz (born May 1, 1972 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American actress. Benz grew up in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Franklin Regional High School. She later graduated from New York University.

After graduating from high school, Julie Benz entered New York University to study acting there. After graduation, Julie moved to Los Angeles to further pursue her career and landed some small roles in movies and TV shows including a guest appearance on an episode of Married with Children in 1994 and a role in the Aaron Spelling unaired TV pilot Cross Town Traffic. She also starred as Christie Lambert in another unaired TV pilot called Empire in 1995. She went on to guest star in many TV shows which include Hang Time, High Tide, Step by Step and Boy Meets World. She also had a small role in the TV movie The Barefoot Executive. She had an uncredited role in Black Sheep and guest appearances in the following shows Diagnosis Murder, Sliders and The Single Guy. She played Kristy in the TV movie Hearts Adrift and a lead role as Julie Falcon in Darkdrive.

In 1996, Julie Benz auditioned for the role of Buffy in the series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997), but lost out to Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, she was offered a small role as a vampire girl in the unaired pilot which she did such a good job that her part was expanded to a few more episodes in playing the vampire Darla. With that, Julie Benz's career had finally taken off. She guest starred in more TV shows like The Big Easy and Fame L.A. whilst getting a small, but memorable, role playing a receptionist in the movie As Good as It Gets (1997). She went on to star in the short spoof film Eating Las Vegas, TV Movie A Walton Easter and a small role in Inventing the Abbotts as a Co-ed.

From 1998, she had a recurring role in the TV show Ask Harriet (though the show was cancelled and only 2 of her 5 appearances aired) then guest starred on Conrad Bloom and The King of Queens. She also starred in two movies Dirt Merchant and the popular dark comedy Jawbreaker before landing a lead role in another TV show called Payne which was cancelled after one series (only 8 of the 9 episodes aired). She also had a recurring role on the show Roswell, starred in the TV movie Satan's School for Girls and had a lead role in the horror movie parody Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth as Barbara.

She reprised her role as Darla in 2000 for the Buffy spin-off series Angel appearing in every episode of the show for at least one season. She had a funny role in the romantic comedy film The Brothers in which she was the only white person featured in the principal cast and was a Guest Host for the TV show Rendez-View. She was cast as Ellie Sparks in Glory Days and appeared in the unaired pilot however she left the show. She guest starred on She Spies and was in the featured cast for the mini-series Taken as Kate Keys. She did various voices for the videogame Hot Shots Golf Fore!, appeared in the short film The Midget Stays in the Picture and took over the role of Ursula for George of the Jungle 2.

Julie Benz went on to guest star in Peacemakers, Coupling, Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Oliver Beene. She landed the lead role of Annie Garrett in the Hallmark TV movie The Long Shot. Benz also provided the voice of Miranda Keyes in the video game Halo 2, though she did not return to the role in the upcoming sequel Halo 3 as Bungie wanted to try a new direction with the Miranda Keyes voice by giving the character an accent, replaced by Justis Bolding. She played the lead role of Danielle in Bad Girls From Valley High a film shot in 2000 under the title of A Fate Totally Worse Than Death was released on DVD in 2005. She had a small role in the critically acclaimed TV movie Lackawanna Blues. In the Scifi Original Locusts: The 8th Plague she played the lead female role Vicky and she also appeared in the straight-to-DVD movie 8mm 2 as Lynn, the film was originally called The Velvet Side of Hell and was not supposed to be a sequel to 8MM.

Julie then guest starred on popular shows like Supernatural, CSI: Miami, Law & Order and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She had a supporting role in a Swedish independant movie called Kill Your Darlings, a lead role in the Lifetime Movie Circle of Friends and was in the main cast of Dexter as Rita Bennett. She will be the lead female in Rambo and plays Angela in The Punisher: War Zone.