Laurie Holden

Heather Laurie Holden (born December 17, 1969) is an American-Canadian actress, producer, model, and human rights activist who played Sammy Thompson between 1998-2001. She is known for her roles as Marita Covarrubias in The X-Files (1996 –2002), Adele Stanton in The Majestic (2001), Cybil Bennett in Silent Hill (2006), Amanda Dumfries in The Mist (2007), Olivia Murray in The Shield (2008), Andrea in The Walking Dead (2010 –2013; 2020) and Renee in The Americans (2017 –2018).

Prior to Doctor Who
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Toronto, Holden holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada. After her parents, actors Glen Corbett and Adrienne Ellis, divorced, her mother married director Michael Anderson. Laurie then split her time between Los Angeles and Toronto. She has a younger brother, Christopher Holden, and a half-sister.

Holden received her first film role when she was a young child. While Holden was on the set visiting her stepfather, a child actress hired to play Rock Hudson's daughter in The Martian Chronicles never arrived, so Laurie filled in. "All of a sudden, I'm Rock Hudson's daughter," she recalls. As a teenager, she won the Look of the Yearmodeling contest in Toronto and was given a minor role as a babysitter in Anderson's comedy Separate Vacations (1986).

After graduating from the Bishop Strachan School, Holden attended McGill University, where she studied economics and political science. She transferred to University of California, Los Angeles and received a degree in theater and film in 1993. At UCLA, she was a member of the National Honor Society and received the prestigious Natalie Wood Acting Award. Holden then pursued a master's degree in human rights at Columbia University.

Early in her career, Holden made a name for herself by co-starring opposite Burt Reynolds in Physical Evidence (1989), Vanessa Redgrave in Young Catherine (1991), and William Shatner in the TV Movie TekWar: TekLab (1994). She also played Mabel Dunham in the TV Movie The Pathfinder (1996) (based on the novel of James Fenimore Cooper). Onstage, she starred in Time and the Conways, written by J. B. Priestley, and The Winter's Tale, based on the play by William Shakespeare. Other stage roles include Regina in Ghosts and Procne in The Love of the Nightingale.

After making various guest appearances on Due South, Murder, She Wrote, and Poltergeist: The Legacy (when she played a dual role), Holden found some success playing a memorable recurring role on the seminal sci-fi series The X-Files: Marita Covarrubias, a mysterious government worker who becomes an informant to Special Agent Fox Mulder, from seasons four through nine (1996 –2002). She also had a supporting role, as Mary Travis, opposite Michael Biehn and Ron Perlman, in the CBS TV series based on the MGM classic, The Magnificent Seven (1998 –2000) and a role as Debra Campbell on Highlander: The Series.

Work on Doctor Who
In 1997 Holden was cast as Sammy Thompson, a new companion to the Doctor. Holden made her first appearance as Sammy in the Season 35 story The Hail Mary. #he continued to play the role up until the Season 38 story Night of the Angels. Holden also made a brief appearance at the conclusion of the Leftover Series 1 episode The Doctored Papers of 1902.

To this date, she is the only American to portray an on-screen companion in the series (notwithstanding the publicity that maintained the fiction that Nicola Bryant was American.

After Doctor Who
Some of Holden's most notable roles include starring opposite Jim Carrey in Frank Darabont's film The Majestic (2001) (It was while performing on stage in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, that Holden was discovered by Darabont). As Carrey's long lost love, she received critical acclaim for her performance. She also co-starred alongside Dean Cain, Jennifer Tilly, and Tim Curry in the Canadian comedy Bailey's Billion$. Other movie roles have included those of Michael Chiklis' character's former love interest in Fantastic Four(2005), Cybil Bennett in Christophe Gans' artistic-horror video game adaptation of Silent Hill (2006), Amanda Dumfries in The Mist (2007), and Olivia Murray in The Shield.

From 2010 to 2013, she played the role of Andrea, a civil rights attorney and survivor of a global zombie plague in The Walking Dead, an AMC television horror drama series. In 2013, she worked on the movie Honeytrap as an executive producer. In 2014 she played the role of Ann McGinnis in the third season of Major Crimes. Also in 2014, she co-starred in the movie Dumb and Dumber To, opposite Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels and Kathleen Turner. She played Adele Pinchelow, the main antagonist of the Farrelly brothers comedy.

In 2015, she appeared as Dr. Hannah Tramble, an ER surgeon, in the third season of Chicago Fire. It was announced Holden would reprise her role as Dr. Tramble in a planned spinoff, Chicago Med. Holden was set to co-star opposite Epatha Merkerson and Yaya Dacosta in the ensemble medical drama. The series is being conceived and written by Chicago Fire creators/executive producers Derek Haas and Michael Brandt. However, she dropped out of the project for "family reasons".

In 2016, she appeared in The Abolitionists, a documentary film by Darrin Fletcher. In 2017, Holden joins the cast of The Americansin the fifth season, when she plays Renee. She has been cast in indie thriller Pyewacket, a movie directed by Adam MacDonald.

In 2018, Laurie Holden appeared in the crime thriller Dragged Across Concrete, starring Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn.

Holden joined the cast of American legal drama television series Proven Innocent (which premiered in 2019 on Fox), where she plays Greta Bellows.

Personal Life
Holden is a founding board member of the Canadian Somaly Mam Foundation, which campaigns against human trafficking, and an advisory board member of the Somaly Mam Foundation in the U.S.

In 2014, Holden worked with Operation Underground Railroad, a volunteer organization that aims to hunt down and arrest child sex traffickers. The group aided authorities in Cartagena, Colombia, in breaking up a sex-trafficking ring that used drugs to force underage boys and girls into prostitution. The operation resulted in the arrests of 12 people and the rescue of 55 sex-trafficking victims, one just 11 years old.

Selected Credits
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As Sammy Thompson

 * A Case for the Blue Box
 * Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
 * Damaged Goods
 * Don't Blink
 * Fallout
 * GodEngine
 * Never Mind the Rogue
 * Night of the Angels
 * The Chimes of Midnight
 * The Conspiracy of Time
 * The End of the World
 * The Forbidden Fruit
 * The Hail Mary
 * The Holy Terror
 * The Lazarus Project
 * The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare (archive footage)
 * The Puppet Master
 * The Robots of Time
 * The Twilight Project
 * Who Killed Kennedy?

As Sammy Thompson

 * The Doctored Papers of 1902
 * }