Summer Phoenix

Proclaimed a "breakout actress" by Interview magazine in the spring of 2002, Summer Phoenix -- the younger sister of River, Rain, and Joaquin Phoenix -- in fact appeared on-camera from the age of six (when she guest starred in such popular series as Murder, She Wrote and Growing Pains) but ultimately branched out into features. Never one to accept conventional adolescent roles in #92;teen #92;sex comedies or #92;slasher films, Phoenix instead sought out complex, demanding, and multilayered parts that required her to give her all and thus reflected heightened intelligence -- roles such as that of the title character in the #92;epic Esther Kahn (2000), about an ascendant Jewish actress, and yet another lead in the social-conscience #92;drama Wasted (2002), as a beleaguered heroin addict. Phoenix next tackled the lead role in the film Suzie Gold (2004), a #92;comedy drama about a young Jewish woman who hits a crossroads in her post-adolescent years and must make some definitive choices about what she wants to do with her life and whom she wants as a life partner. Off-camera, Phoenix made headlines when she married actor Casey Affleck in 2006. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

• Also Credited As:
  Summer Joy Phoenix
• Born:
  December 10, 1978 in Winter Park, Florida, USA
• Job Titles:
  Actor

Family

• Brother: Joaquin Phoenix. Born Oct. 28, 1974 in Puerto Rico
• Brother: River Phoenix. Born Aug. 23, 1970 in Madras, Oregon; died on Oct. 31, 1993 of a drug overdose in Los Angeles, California
• Father: John Bottom Amram. Born in 1947 in Fontana, California; missionary with Children of God; former Children of God s archbishop of Venezuela and the Caribbean Islands
• Mother: Arlyn Dunitz Jochebed. Born in the Bronx in 1944; former missionary with Children of God; worked as a temp at NBC in California in 1978
• Sister: Liberty Butterfly Phoenix. Born in Venezuela in 1976
• Sister: Rain Joan of Arc Phoenix. Born in Texas on March 31, 1973
• Son: Indiana August Affleck. Born May 31, 2004 in Amsterdam; father is Casey Affleck

Significant Others

• Companion: Casey Affleck. together since c. 1999

Education

• New York University, New York, NY, film

Milestones

• 1986 Appeared in the NBC TV-movie Katie s Secret
• 1987 Film debut, Ruskies
• 1991 Moved to NYC
• 1997 Returned to movies after a decade in Arresting Gena
• 1998 Had bit role in The Faculty
• 2000 Co-starred in Committed
• 2000 First leading role, the title character in Esther Kahn
• 2001 Played the lover of a neo-Nazi in the Sundance-screened The Believer ; sold to Showtime in lieu of a theatrical release; aired March 2002 on Showtime; released theatrically in May 2002
• 2002 Had featured role in The Laramie Project (HBO)
• 2002 Starred opposite Nick Stahl in the MTV movie Wasted