Summer Phoenix

Proclaimed a "breakout actress" by Interview magazine in the spring of 2002, Summer Phoenix -- the younger sister of River, Rain, and Joaquin Phoenix -- in fact appeared on-camera from the age of six (when she guest starred in such popular series as Murder, She Wrote and Growing Pains) but ultimately branched out into features. Never one to accept conventional adolescent roles in teen sex comedies or slasher films, Phoenix instead sought out complex, demanding, and multilayered parts that required her to give her all and thus reflected heightened intelligence -- roles such as that of the title character in the epic Esther Kahn (2000), about an ascendant Jewish actress, and yet another lead in the social-conscience drama Wasted (2002), as a beleaguered heroin addict. Phoenix next tackled the lead role in the film Suzie Gold (2004), a comedy drama about a young Jewish woman who hits a crossroads in her post-adolescent years and must make some definitive choices about what she wants to do with her life and whom she wants as a life partner. Off-camera, Phoenix made headlines when she married actor Casey Affleck in 2006.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide