Тара Линн Субкофф: Актриса, художница и дизайнер

American actress

Tara Lyn Subkoff (born December 10, 1972) is an American actress, conceptual artist, director, and fashion designer. Subkoff made her film debut in the thriller When the Bough Breaks (1994) opposite Martin Sheen, and has had supporting roles in As Good as It Gets (1997), The Last Days of Disco (1998), The Cell (2000), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). In 2001, she co founded an art collective turned fashion line, Imitation of Christ, which featured pieces hand sewn solely from recycled vintage and thrift store clothing, and has since worked primarily as a conceptual artist. In 2015, she made her feature film directorial debut with the horror film #Horror (2015), which was picked up for distribution by IFC Midnight.

Subkoff was born in Westport, Connecticut. Her father was an antiques dealer who owned an antique store on 13th Street in Manhattan, and her mother was a schoolteacher in East Harlem. She grew up in what she described as a "bohemian" family, and attended boarding school at the Williston Northampton School in Massachusetts. After graduation, she attended the Parsons School of Design, but dropped out within a year of enrolling. She relocated to Los Angeles, California in 1991 to study acting, and took classes alongside Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reeves. and the comedy Lover Girl (1997), co starring Kristy Swanson. She had minor parts in As Good as It Gets (1997), Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998), and an uncredited appearance in the 1999 teen sex comedy American Pie. She also appeared in a supporting role in the sci fi horror film The Cell (2000) with Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio. In 2017, Subkoff joined the group of women making the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, saying that the producer had sexually harassed her in the 1990s when she applied for a role in one of his films, and then had her blacklisted when she resisted. "It became impossible for me to get work as an actress after this, so I then had to start a new career path and started Imitation of Christ", she said.

In 2000, Subkoff began working on a project called Imitation of Christ with designer Matt Damhave, enlisting Chloë Sevigny as the project's creative director. Models who wore the pieces for runway shows included actress Scarlett Johansson. Reflecting on the line, Subkoff said: “We were talking about waste, throwing things away, and taking something that’s old and making it new again, putting the human hand back into a world that reeks of manufacturing. It felt very appropriate to do that in 2000." In 2003, she also collaborated with Bernhard Willhelm on a fashion collection inspired and authorized by Roberto Capucci. After Subkoff and Damhave parted ways, she continued to design pieces for the line through 2006. In 2007, Subkoff sold the label to Josh Sparks, the former chief executive of the Australian label Sass & Bide, for a reported $2 million. She also conceptualized a performance piece in a group show curated by Dimitri Antonitsis in Hydra, Greece. She exhibited a three hour long installation at the Bortolami Gallery in New York City during the 2012 New York Fashion Week titled "This is Not a Fashion Show," which featured a girl's choir in leotards performing “Carol of the Bells” (intimated as a "slight to Yuletide consumerism") and "performers aging from 8 to 70 pruned and posing in front of antique mirrors lining the gallery walls." In 2013, she collaborated with Milla Jovovich on a filmed installation in Venice, Italy titled "Future/Perfect," which had Jovovich enclosed in a glass house, surrounded by boxes with consumer logos, artwork, and clothing. Though working predominantly in art, Subkoff also had a minor appearance in the film, including Tanner Hall (2009) and Abandoned (2010), with Brittany Murphy. Subkoff made her directorial debut in 2014 with the horror film #Horror (2015), which details a group of wealthy adolescent girls who experience a night of violence and terror after a social media game is tinged with cyberbullying. The film was screened out of competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and was picked up for distribution by IFC Midnight, slated for a limited release in November 2015. According to Subkoff, she conceived the film after a conversation she'd had with her friend's daughter: "[The idea] started because I asked my friend's daughter, "What is horror, to you?" This girl was cyberbullied very badly Now, I was bullied badly as a kid, but I could always change schools. I could always go home. Now you can't when bullying follows you home, and there's no escape and no end, to me, that's horror. And to so many girls, that's just life."

Subkoff has been formerly romantically linked to Wes Anderson, and was formerly engaged to director Tom Hooper. Subkoff resides in Los Angeles, California, where she bought a three story house designed by architect Saul Harris Brown in the Silver Lake neighbourhood for $2.25 million in 2021. In 2009, Subkoff was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a benign brain tumor that required her to undergo a craniotomy in September 2009. Her symptoms had originally been diagnosed as TMJ by her doctor in 2003.

Year Series Role Notes1994 Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Jennifer Episode: "Orphan Train"1994 Northern Exposure Mary Margaret Episode: "The Letter"1996 Kindred: The Embraced Cash's Girl Episode: "The Original Saga" 2013 Kroll Show Two episodes