Rescue Me

Background:

First acquiring notice in American with her portrayal of Sally Field's daughter, Eleanor, in the Emmy award winning miniseries “A Woman Of Independent Means” (1995), Canadian-born actress Andrea Roth has gained even more popularity and recognition thanks to her role of former wife Janet Gavin in the well-known drama series “Rescue Me” (FX, 2004-2009), starring and co-created by Denis Leary. She also has guest starred in several American TV shows, including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Outer Limits,” “Nash Bridge,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “CSI: Miami,” “Law & Order,” “Lost” and “Dark Blue,” and acted in numerous films or TV films such as “The Stepdaughter” (2001), “Highwaymen” (2004, with James Caviezel), “Last Exit” (2006, with fellow Canadian Kathleen Robertson), “War” (2007, with Jet Li and Jason Statham) and “The Skeptic” (2009, with Tom Arnold). One of Canada's most outstanding female actresses, Roth began her career as a model in Toronto while still in college, and from there she immediately branched out to acting.

Scottish-Dutch Canadian

Childhood and Family:

Andrea Roth was born on September 30, 1967, in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada. Her father is Scottish and her mother is Dutch. She got her first acting experience at age 11 when she landed a role in Helen Keller's “Miracle Worker.” She was trained by acting couch Howard Fine.

A Woman of Independent Means

Career:

While attending college and interning at a Toronto based advertising agency, Andrea Roth was discovered by a top modeling scout and embarked on a modeling career after college. She subsequently made the transition to acting. I 1998, Roth broke into the small screen by playing Anna in HBO's “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” She went o to appear in “Night Heat” later in that same year and “C.B.C.'s Magic Hour” in 1989 before making her big screen debut in the America/Japan produced action/horror “The Jitters” (1989), helmed by Jon Fasano.

Roth became even more busy in the following decade with over 30 TV and film projects under her belt. She had a supporting role in the Canadian film “Princes in Exile” (1990), adapted from Mark Schreiber's novel, was cast along side Zach Galligan and Catherine Mary Stewart in the George Mihalka-directed thriller “Psychic” (1992), costarred with Sam Hennings in Peter Manoogian's horror/science fiction “Seedpeople” (1992) and was cast in the Brenton Spencer forgettable horror film “The Club” (1994). Meanwhile, Roth had a better luck on television. She landed a string of guest spots in such shows as “Friday the 13th,” “The Hitchhiker” (both 1990), “Dangerous Curves,” “Parker Lewis Can't Lose” (both 1992), “ Counterstrike,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Highlander” (all 1993) and “Dead at 21” (1994), and a recurring role in the Canadian prime time soap “E.N.G” (1992-1993, as Tessa Vargas). She also acted in the ABC miniseries “Spoils of War” (1994), opposite Kate Nelligan, John Heard and Tobey Maguire, supported Christine Lahti and Terry O'Quinn in the Lifetime TV film “The Good Fight” (1992) and played the dual role of Kim Jameson / Kate 'Dominique' Jameson in the CBS telepic “A Change of Place” (1994).

It was in 1994 that Roth won her first regular role in the syndicated popular show “RoboCop,” starring Richard Eden. She played NeuroBrain in the series. Her big breakthrough arrived in the following year when she was cast as adult Eleanor in the NBC miniseries “A Woman of Independent Means” (1995), starring Sally Field and Ron Silver. Robert Greenwald directed the show, with the telepay adapted by Cindy Myers from the book of the same name by Elizabeth Forsythe-Hailey.

Roth next appeared with Jon Favreau in the failed pilot “Desert Breeze” (1996), guested in the series “The Outer Limits” (1996), “Players” (1997), “The Pretender” (1998) and “Nash Bridge” (1999), and teamed with Tom Skerritt in the USA Network telefilm “Divided by Hate” (1997), also directed by Skerritt. On the big screen front, she could be seen in “The Sunchaser” (1996), a drama starring Woody Harrelson, Jon Seda and Anne Bancroft and helmed by Michael Cimino, the sciene fiction “Crossworlds” (1997), opposite Rutger Hauer, Josh Charles, Stuart Wilson and Jack Black, the indie drama “Red Meat” (1997), directed and penned by Allison Burnett and starring Lara Fynn Boyle and James Frain, costarred as Monika Engelmann in the Canadian thriller “Hidden Agenda” (1998), with Kevin Dillon and Christoper Plummer, and Scott Storm's independent film “Burn” (1998), which won Jury Special Award at the 1998 Slamdance Film Festival.

Entering the new millennium, Roth took a small recurring role of Jo Decker in the TNT drama series “Bull,” whose main cast included Alicia Coppola, Ian Kahn, George Newbern, Elisabeth Röhm, Christopher Wiehl and Malik Yoba., and continued to have one episodic part in the TV shows “Diagnosis Murder” (2000) and FX's “Lucky” (2003) as well as appeared in the pilot of “The Agency” (2001) before joining the cast of CBS' drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” in the recurring role of Officer Kerry Ray during 2003-2004 season. She also acted in several TV films, including “Personally Yours” (2000, starred Jeffrey Nordling), HBO's “The Stepdaughter” (2001, starred as Susan Heller), “All Around the Town” (2002, with Nastassja Kinski) and “The Perfect Husband” (2004, with Tracy Nelson, Michael Riley and Thomas Calabro), and in the movies “Dangerous Attraction” (2000) and “Highwaymen” (2004), where she was cast in the memorable role of Alexandra Farrow. Costars in the Robert Harmon-helmed action/crime film included James Caviezel, Rhona Mitra, Frankie Faison, Colm Feore and Gordon Currie.

Roth's profile in the U.S. gained further boost when she won the regular role of Janet Gavin in the FX drama/comedy “Rescue Me,” created by Peter Tolan and Denis Leary, who also stars in the show as her ex-husband, Tommy Gavin. Debuted on July 21, 2004, the series was well-received by both audiences and critics and went on to have strong ratings to the fifth season, which began airing on April 7, 2009 and ended in September 1, 2009.

During her high profile work on “Rescue Me,” Roth guested in “Law & Order” (2005), “CSI: Miami” (2005), “Numb3rs” (2007), “Criminal Minds” (2008) and “Lost” (2009). She also did a series of TV movies like “Chasing Christmas” (2005), “Crazy for Christmas” (2005), “Last Exit” (2006), “Bridal Fever” (2008) and “The Secret Lives of Second Wives” (2008). In 2007, Roth had the important supporting role of Jenny Crawford in the rated R action/thriller “War,” starring Jet Li and Jason Statham as a mysterious assassin named Rogue and FBI agent Crawford, respectively. More recently, in 2009, she was cast as Robin Becket in Tennyson Bardwell's horror/thriller “The Skeptic,” along side Tim Daly, Tom Arnold and Zoe Saldana, and Victoria in Marcus Dunstan's “The Collector,” with Madeline Zima, Josh Stewart and Juan Fernández. She also played Nicole Carter in two episodes of the TNT drama “Dark Blue,” starring Dylan McDermott and Omari Hardwick.

Roth has completed filming “The Holiday House” (2009), a comedy helmed by John Murlowski and written by Jay Cipriani. She will star along side Jason London, Bruce Davison, Nicholas Brendon and Elisa Donovan. She is rumored to play Teresa in George Erschbamer's upcoming film, “Courage,” opposite Jason Priestley.

Awards:
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