Troian Bellisario

Troian Avery Bellisario (born October 28, 1985) is an American actress. She is the daughter of producers Donald P. Bellisario and Deborah Pratt. Born in Los Angeles, California. Bellisario made her acting debut in her father's 1988 film Last Rites at the age of three. She continued to have roles produced by her father, mainly in television shows such as Quantum Leap, First Monday, and NCIS, and in 1998, she acted in the direct-to-video comedy film Billboard Dad.

Bellisario received praise for her leading performance in the 2010 film Consent for which she won the Vision Fest Award for Best Acting by a Female Lead and the FirstGlance Philadelphia Award for Best Actress. In 2009, she landed the lead role of Spencer Hastings in the Freeformseries Pretty Little Liars (2010–present). For her performance, she has won two Teen Choice Awards out of five nominations. In addition to her work on Pretty Little Liars, Bellisario also starred in the WIGS episode series Lauren, for which she received critical acclaim and won the New York Film Festival Award for Best Performance by an Actress and was nominated for the Streamy Award for Best Female Performance - Drama.

Early life
Troia Avery Bellisario was born and raised in Los Angeles. Her parents are producers Donald P. Bellisario and Deborah Pratt.[1] Donald P. Bellisario created Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap, and NCIS, among other TV series. She has a younger brother,[2] three half-sisters, two half-brothers, and is a step-sister of actor Sean Murray and producer Chad W. Murray. Her father is of Italian and Serbian descent. Her mother is of African-American and Creole descent.[3][4][5]

Bellisario attended Campbell Hall School in North Hollywood, California from kindergarten through twelfth grade,[6] where she was the valedictorian of her class.[7] She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Southern California in 2009.[8]

Career
Bellisario made her acting debut in the 1988 film Last Rites at the age of three.[9] From 1990 to 2007, she guest starred on such television series as Quantum Leap, Tequila and Bonetti, JAG, First Monday and NCIS, television series that were produced by her father Donald P. Bellisario. In NCIS, she played Sarah McGee, sister of Special Agent Timothy McGee, played by her real-life stepbrother Sean Murray.

In 1998, she co-starred with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in the film Billboard Dad. Beginning in 2006, Bellisario began appearing in a number of independent short films namely, Unspoken, Archer House and Intersect. In November 2009, Bellisario was cast as Spencer Hastings in the TV series Pretty Little Liars based on the book series of the same name by Sara Shepard.[10] In October 2011, Bellisario announced she was in the process of writing and creating her own film, which was successfully funded through Kickstarter on November 16, 2011. Filming ended in December 2011 and the film was officially completed by August 2012.[11]

In August 2012, Bellisario appeared alongside Jennifer Beals in the WIGS web episode series, Lauren.[12] Laurenreturned on May 3, 2013 for a twelve episode run.[13][14] In 2015, she was cast in a leading role in the American remake of the French-Canadian film Martyrs.[15][16] In 2015, Bellisario and fiancée Patrick J. Adams filmed short film We Are Here in Haida Gwaii, which Bellisario wrote and starred in. Bellisario starred in her feature film, Feed, a semi-autobiographical movie, which she also wrote and produced.

On April 7, 2016, it was announced that Bellisario would be directing Season 7, Episode 15 of Pretty Little Liars.[17] This made her one of the first in the cast, alongside Chad Lowe, to direct an episode on the series.

Personal life
Bellisario started dating Suits star Patrick J. Adams after they met on the set of the play Equivocation in 2009.[18]The couple briefly split, but after Adams' guest appearance on Pretty Little Liars in 2010, the two got back together.[19][20] Since working on Equivocation and Pretty Little Liars, the couple have also worked together on the 2012 short film The Come Up, Suits, and We Are Here. On February 14, 2014, Bellisario and Adams were engaged under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.[21] They married on December 10, 2016 in Santa Barbara, California.[22][23]

Bellisario revealed in early January 2014 that she went through personal problems through high school, resulting in an eating disorder and self-harming problems. "I was the youngest daughter, the perfect little girl," she said. "My school was a very intense college prep school. So it was about wanting to please my father and mother and wanting to be perfect to everybody."[24]