Summer Glau



Summer Lyn Glau (11px /ˈɡlaʊ/; born July 24, 1981) is an American actress, known for playing River Tam in the science fiction series Firefly and follow-up film Serenity, and for playing Cameron in the series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

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[show]==Early lifeEdit== Glau was born in San Antonio, Texas, where she grew up with her two younger sisters (Kaitlin and Christie). She is of Scots-Irish and German descent.[1]  Her mother is a school teacher and her father a general contractor.[2]

Glau received a scholarship to a ballet company and was home-schooled from grades 3 to 12 to accommodate her ballet training.[3]  Glau was classically trained as a ballet dancer[4]  and also studied tango and flamenco. After a broken toe[3]  ended her dancing career,[4]  Glau later moved to Los Angeles in 2002 to pursue a more active acting career.

CareerEdit
Glau's first television credit was a guest role as a ballerina on the 2002 episode "Waiting in the Wings" of the television series Angel. There she caught the eye of director Joss Whedon, who later cast her in his critically acclaimed but short-lived TV series Firefly as River Tam, a role she reprised for the show's feature film sequel, Serenity. Glau previously auditioned for the role as a Pink Ranger on one of the Power Rangersseries before meeting Joss Whedon.[5]

Glau appeared on the episode "Love Conquers Al" of the TV series Cold Case. She had a small role in the film Sleepover, in which she played ahigh school senior named Shelly. She also appeared in the CSI episode "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom?", and the second season of The Unit; portraying Crystal Burns, the girlfriend of Jeremy Erhart. In 2006, Glau played Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic returnee in the second season premiere of The 4400 (episode "Wake-Up Call"), and became a recurring character from season 3 onwards. She also starred in thescience fiction film Mammoth. Glau was cast in the ABC Family TV movie The Initiation of Sarah. Glau at CollectorMania 2007In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a series that debuted January 13, 2008, Glau played the role of Cameron Phillips, a Terminator infiltration unit sent back to protect John Connor and Sarah Connor from Skynet.[6]  The seventh episode of the series, "The Demon Hand", included several scenes in which Glau (in character as Cameron) dancesballet. Glau also guest starred as herself in the 2009 episode "The Terminator Decoupling" from the second season of the CBS situation comedy The Big Bang Theory.[7]

On August 26, 2009, it was confirmed after much speculation that Glau would be joining the cast of Joss Whedon'sDollhouse for at least two episodes in the early part of the show's second season. She portrayed Bennett, the programmer for a rival Dollhouse.[8]

On March 12, 2010, it was announced that she would be joining the cast of NBC's The Cape in a leading role.[9]  In June 2010 she was confirmed as the female lead in the horror comedy film Knights of Badassdom.[10]

Glau voiced Kara Zor-El in the DC Comics original animated movie Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.[11]

AwardsEdit
Glau was voted Best Actress of 2005 by readers of SFX magazine and received a 2005 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Serenity.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11">[12]  She was also runner up for Best Actress/Movie in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12">[13]

In 2008, she received the Best Supporting Television Actress award at the 34th Saturn Awards for her performance as Cameron Phillips inTerminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13">[14]  and was nominated for the Spike TV Scream Awards in the category Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show for the same role.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14">[15]

Personal lifeEdit
Summer Glau has been involved in a number of charities, such as B.C. Women's Hospital & Health Centre<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15">[16]  Glau is an animal lover and has shown support to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16">[17]  where she hand-painted a decorative pet bowl that was later sold on eBay to raise funds. She became a vegetarian in 1995, but, in 2005 she stated that "[...] by the end of shooting [the same year filmSerenity] I was eating steaks."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-TeleDance_17-0">[18]  Glau has trained in multiple forms of martial arts, including kung fu and kickboxing.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-TeleDance_17-1">[18] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18">[19] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19">[20] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20">[21]