In 1998, Farmiga make her big screen debut, acting in the drama "Return to Paradise.” Then in 2000 she played the daughters of Christopher Walken and Richard Gere in "The Opportunists" and "Autumn in New York" respectively, and made the most of her underwritten roles. Her next film, "15 Minutes" (2001), marked Farmiga’s breakthrough in a part that utilized her own Eastern European background. (She was born to immigrants and raised in a Ukrainian community in New Jersey.) In the film, she played a Czech import who witnesses a crime and falls for the investigating detective (Edward Burns). Winning critical raves and audience notice for her supporting turn, Farmiga had already lined up a host of projects to continue her upward climb.

As a regular on the NBC drama "UC: Undercover" (2001- ), Farmiga finally took center stage, playing a strong-willed and crafty undercover investigator who keeps her cool in the toughest situations. Her portrayal of Alex Cross would expose the actress to a wide audience and offer her an enviable opportunity to play a featured and fully-realized female character. A supporting role in the episodic drama "Dust" (screened at the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals in 2001) put the actress back on the big screen, where she would also be featured in the independents "Dummy" (2003) and "Nine Scenes About Love" (lensed 2000). After a supporting role in the detective thriller “15 Minutes” (2001), Farmiga played a prostitute with a disgruntled john (Domenick Lombardozzi) in the ensemble drama “Love in the Time of Money” (2002). She then starred as a working class mother struggling to keep her marriage together and raise two sons while hiding her cocaine addiction in “Down to the Bone” (2003). Farmiga won Best Actress awards from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance.

Farmiga returned to television with a regular role on “Touching Evil” (USA, 2004), a short-lived procedural based on the British series of the same name about an agent (Jeffrey Donovan) of the Organized and Serial Crime Unit who solves high profile crimes after a near-fatal injury. She then had a supporting role in “Iron Jawed Angels” (HBO, 2004), the award-winning biopic based on the true story of women’s rights activists Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor) and their struggle to earn American women the right to vote. Back in features, she had a memorable role as the daughter of a liberal senator (Jon Voight) in the remake of “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004). Farmiga was then seen in “Running Scared” (2006), playing the wife of a low-level mobster (Paul Walker) trying to get back a stolen gun used in the fatal shooting of a corrupt cop.

She next joined an all-star cast that included Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson in “The Departed” (2006), playing a police psychologist who gets involved with a Boston cop (DiCaprio) deep undercover inside a crime syndicate ran by a deviant mob boss (Nicholson), while also falling for another officer (Damon) who happens to be a gangster inside the boss’ gang. Directed by Martin Scorsese and loosely based on the excellent Hong Kong action thriller “Infernal Affairs” (2002), “The Departed” earned huge helpings of critical kudos and potential Oscar buzz prior to it early October release, positioning the film for a strong opening weekend. Meanwhile, Farmiga starred opposite Jude Law in “Breaking and Entering” (2006), an ensemble drama about a young Muslim thief who breaks into the London office of a yuppie architect, triggering a series of related events that intersect the two men’s lives with a variety of other people in the seedy inner city area of Kings Cross.