Taissa Farmiga
Biography
Taissa Farmiga (/tɑːˈiːsə fɑːrˈmiːɡə/ tah-EE-sə far-MEE-gə; born August 17, 1994) is an American actress. Born in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, she is the younger sister of actress Vera Farmiga. Her numerous appearances in horror films have established her as a scream queen.
Farmiga was encouraged to begin acting by her sister, and subsequently made her debut in her sister's film Higher Ground (2011). Thereafter, she rose to prominence for her work on the anthology series American Horror Story, starring in the seasons Murder House (2011), Coven (2013–2014), Roanoke (2016), and Apocalypse (2018).
Her early film roles include the romantic comedy At Middleton (2013), the crime drama The Bling Ring (2013), and the psychological thriller Mindscape (2013), the latter of which was her first starring film role.
Farmiga was lauded for her performances in the comedy slasher film The Final Girls (2015), and the drama films 6 Years (2015) and Share (2015), all of which premiered at South by Southwest, which led her to be named one of the breakout stars of the festival.
She has also provided the voice of Raven in the DC Animated Movie Universe (2016–2020), starred in the comedy films Rules Don't Apply (2016) and The Long Dumb Road (2018), the drama films In a Valley of Violence (2016) and What They Had (2018) and the supernatural thriller film The Nun (2018).
Farmiga headlined the procedural drama series Wicked City (2015), and made her stage debut in the off-Broadway revival of the drama play Buried Child (2016).
Farmiga was born in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, on August 17, 1994, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants Lubomyra Spas, a schoolteacher, and Michael Farmiga, a systems analyst. She has six older siblings named Victor, Vera, Stephan, Nadia, Alexander, and Laryssa, the last of whom was born with spina bifida.
Her maternal grandparents met at Karlsfeld, a sub-camp of the Dachau concentration camp system, during World War II. Farmiga attended public school until fourth grade, after which she began homeschooling. She has stated that she understands the Ukrainian language but can only partially speak it.
She is proficient in American Sign Language, having taken classes for four years. Farmiga was raised Pentecostal as her sister Vera and the rest of the family had already been converts from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
