She will next star in Ironclad. Mara wanted to be an actress since seeing Les Misérables at a young age; she said she “fell in love with Broadway and musicals”, and grew up watching movie musicals on television and going to Broadway shows with her mother. Mara’s mother got the name and address of a management company, sent in a photograph, and Mara signed with her first agent, beginning her professional career at the age of 14. Mara’s first audition was for the television drama Homicide: Life on the Street. Mara moved to Manhattan in order to act full time. Mara’s first television role was in the drama Law & Order in 1997. Mara co-starred in Peoples (2004), a drama and coming of age story filmed in Louisville, Kentucky. She starred in the direct-to-video horror film Urban Legends: Bloody Mary, and appeared with Noah Wyle and Illeana Douglas in The Californians in 2005.
