Peta Wilson Biography And Filmography:

Australian actress and model Peta Wilson fascinated television viewers as a sexy spy in the smash hit television series “La Femme Nikita” (1997-2001), which won her a cult following around the world. After the show’s cancellation, she kept a low profile while her roles in films like “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” (2003) with Sean Connery, and “Superman Returns” (2006) were outstanding.

Born Peta Gia Wilson in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on November. 18, 1970, her father was a military man, and relocated the family a number of times to different parts of the world. It was there that she felt her first interest in acting. She attended an all-girls high school in Brisbane, Australia, and liked sports, while her mother encouraged her to take etiquette lessons to balance out her schooling. This proved to be a good move, as a talent agent recruited her during one of those classes. She enjoyed many years of success as a runway and print model, traveling the world.

In 1991, she decided to give acting a try, relocating to Los Angeles to work under Arthur Mendoza at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting West. By 1995, she was being hired for supporting roles in small films like the crime drama “Loser” (1995). She then appeared in a 1996 guest appearance on “Highlander” (1992-98). 

She was ready to move to New York to continue her acting studies when her agent talked her into an audition for the lead role in a new show based on Luc Besson’s French drama, “La Femme Nikita” (1991). She got the role, and was soon shot into fame, thanks to the show’s positive feedback with American audiences. “Nikita” was the top-rated program on United States television for its first four seasons, and while critics could say that the key to the show’s success was its complex story lines – which had trained assassin Nikita fighting both enemy forces and evil people, the fans clearly saw her physical beauty, athleticism, and flawless acting as central to its attraction. For her role as Nikita, she was twice nominated for a Gemini Award, as well as for a Saturn Award in 1997.

The show was cancelled in 2000, and a huge fan protest brought “Nikita” back for a short season of eight episodes, but the actress had already moved to New York with her boyfriend, director Damian Harris, and was already planning her next career moves.

The 2000 film “Mercy” shot her into the movie big leagues. A sexy erotic thriller with Ellen Barkin as a homicide cop whose investigation into a string of murders brings her in contact with a lesbian dominatrix. She next worked on television in projects like Showtime’s “A Girl Thing” (2001), where she played a patient who is taken hostage with her psychiatrist by a deranged woman, and “Joe and Max” (2002), a television movie about the friendship between boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmelling. That same year, she gave birth to a son, Marlowe.

In 2003, she returned to movies as Mina Harker, a vampire hunter in Alan Moore’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” Even with the presence of Sean Connery and some dazzling special effects, the film failed at the box office. The next year, she appeared nude in a photo layout in Playboy Magazine as a Playmate, saying in news reports that she had agreed to the photo shoot as a way of showing her great-grandchildren how good she had looked in her youth. It worked, and it looked like the world wanted to see her. Her centerfold with Playboy was one of the fastest selling issues in the history of the magazine. 

She then played a woman who seeks revenge on the con man whose plan lead to her husband’s death in the 2004 television movie “False Pretenses,” and made appearances on the show “Jonny Zero” ( 2005), and in an episode of the Australian television suspense thriller “Too Twisted” (2005). 

Fans were happy to see her show up in a small role as a NASA spokesperson in Bryan Singer’s thriller, “Superman Returns” in 2006. She and her husband teamed up in 2007 for the drama-thriller “Gardens of the Night,” about the hazards of foster care. None of the projects brought her the success of her “Nikita,” days, but she seemed satisfied as a working actress with a life centered around her family. She wrapped her year with the drama "Beautiful" (2008).

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