Maria Olsen came to America in January
2005 and hasn't taken time to breath since she got here. In five short years she has performed in 15 stage plays
(including one Off-Broadway), directed 3 plays, written and directed her own play, shot at least 25 feature films, 52 shorts,
3 web series, 5 music videos and recorded 5 voiceover gigs. She has also won four awards (including awards for both
acting and directing), had two short films appear at the 2009 Cannes Short Film Program, one at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival,
and became a proud member of the Screen Actors Guild in March 2009. Her features and shorts have also screened at other
international festivals such as the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors (Justin Paul Ritter’s A Gothic Tale), HorrorFest (Patrick
Horvath’s Die-ner (Get It?) - where she won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Rose the Waitress - and the International
HBO Latino Film Festival (Sam Benavides’ Mansfield Path). Features Shellter, IJE: The Journey and Blue like the
Morning are currently collecting awards on the festival circuit, while Dragonquest, Die-ner (Get It?), Alone Together and
Humanity’s End are now all available on DVD. Further past projects include a pivotal supporting role in the 2010
Fox blockbuster Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief (Chris Columbus directed and Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman star),
which came out on DVD and Blu-Ray in June 2010. She has also recently completed shooting several further features, including
Tim Curley’s The Mudman, Mark Edwin Robinson’s The Levenger Tapes, Taylor Sheridan’s Vile and Jose Figueroa’s
San Francisco 2177. Future projects include horror features Feed Me and Straight On Till Morning as well as a psychological
thriller – Les Mahoney’s Dancing with Rip - where she will star as Elise van Rensburg, a South African reporter.
Thanks must go to her husband Kevin for putting up with her and also to her amazing agents and managers, especially Bonnie
Howard and Ileane Rusch, for wanting to represent her and doing it so well =)
