Mia Kirshner: Age, Marriage, Career, Quick Facts

Mia Kirshner is the star with a lethal handshake. Your earliest memory of her should be that handshake she gave President Palmer in Season 2 of Fox thrilling series 24. The star has gone on to star in scores of films and series. Here are all we know about her.

Mia Kirshner’s age

Mia Kirshner was born on January, 25. That is what we are sure of. The year is not so clear. Sources put the year as 1975 and 1976. According to IMDb and TV.com, she was born in 1975. And according to Film Reference and Rotten Tomatoes, she was born a year later in 1976. Mia Kirshner is 43 or 44 years depending on who you wish to believe.

What is her real age? Which figure is the true one as she couldn’t have been born two times? We have no clue and, frankly, this doesn’t keep us awake at night. It doesn’t keep Mia awake (otherwise she would have settled the matter) so why should it?

Kirshner was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is Jewish and a survivor. Her grandparents on her father’s side survived Hitler’s Holocaust and her father was born in a displaced persons’ camp in Germany, less than one year after D-day. On her mother’s side, her mother herself was a Bulgarian Jewish refugee.

Mia spent all her formative and educational life in Canada including getting a degree in McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. She studied Russian Literature and 20th-century movie industry. Before her university education, she was already an actress but why she settled for 20th-century movies? Why Russian Literature of all literatures?  We don’t know and we are not complaining.

Mia Kirshner: Career and movies

Mia Kirshner began her career aged 15. She appeared on the TV series “War of the World” in 1989 then a handful of one-episode appearances in series up to 1995, including “Dracula: The Series”. In 1994, she acted one of her earliest films, playing the role of Christina, a stripper in the Canadian erotic thriller “Exotica”. She was so good many suspected she will be lost to the other industry.

As is with most Canadian stars, Mia Kirshner made the transition to Hollywood. One of her early movies here was the teen comedy “She’s All That”. She was in the crime thriller “The Black Dahlia”. A film with so much potential which was shot with 50 million dollars but ended up with just 49 plus in the box office.

In 2001, Mia began appearing in Fox thriller “24” as one of the terrorists who tried to harm the first African American President David Palmer. And as it happens in 24, when you are bad, Jack Bauer kills you or captures you. Her waterloo came in the fourth season.

She was a recurring cast member in The CW’s “The Vampire Diaries” between 2010 and 2011 and CBS’ “Star Trek: Discovery” between 2017 and now that we write this. Her most prominent appearance comes on TV in the American-Canadian collaboration series “The L Word”. The series (2004 to 2009) chronicles a group of women who happen to be lesbians and Mia’s character, Jenny Schecter, happens to be one of such gay women.

Mia Kirshner’s sexuality – Is she gay?

Mia Kirshner has had to deal with rumors about her sexuality. This is not surprising as Mia is heading towards her mid-forties and never married. People easily associate older spinsterhood and bachelorhood with homosexuality.

And for Kirshner, this rumor is fueled even more by the fact that played a lesbian character in “24”, in “Not Another Teen Movie” (2001), and “The L Word” (2004). Acting it doesn’t make you a lesbian just like she acted a terrorist and isn’t one.

But Mia didn’t douse the rumor as she is quoted as saying this as regards to sex scenes with women: “I genuinely enjoy doing them, and I think that women are lovely and generous. There’s an intangible feeling and a comfort level that is beautiful.”

And she added: “I don’t care if people think I’m gay. Gender is of no consequence to me. It’s a person’s brain that counts.”

Rumors can rave but there is no one who can point at anyone who fits the bill of her same-sex partner. On the contrary, Mia Kirshner has had an impressive list of heterosexual dates including Stephen Hopkins the director, Evan Dando the musician, Sam Shepard the actor (who was 30 years her senior or to put it crudely old enough to be her father). Among other dates.

Since 2015, there is no record of Kirshner with anyone.

Mia Kirshner: Quick facts

She was among the scores of women Harvey Weinstein molested or tried to molest. He tried to have his way with her in 1994, a fact she admitted in 2017.

She is fluent in French as she had some education in the French-speaking Quebec.

Having survived the Holocaust, her father’s father David Kirshner, went on to live more than 100 years. He died in January 2016, a few months short of his 102nd birthday.

In 2002, Mia Kirshner was ranked by the men’s magazine Maxim as 43 of the hottest women of that year.

Kirshner is an author. She wrote a book “I Live Here” in 2008, in which chronicled the lives of refugees the proceeds which went to charity.

Kirshner is not a giant as she stands at 5 feet 2 inches or 1.6 meters.

Image source: 24 Spoilers