Sandra Ellis Lafferty

Sandra Ellis Lafferty is best known for her roles in Walk the Line (2005), Hunger Games (2012), Prisoners (2013) Self/Less (2015) and A Walk in the Woods (2015). Over the past three decades, she has received national and international acclaim for playing pivotal characters in film and television. Sandra began her career as a stage actor and was named best actress for a season by the Denver drama critics, when she was a member of The Denver Center Theatre Company. She also was named best actress by Westword magazine. With years of theater experience, Sandra begin her film career at age 50. After a small role in the movie Dogfight, filmed in Seattle, she moved to Los Angeles. Over the next few years, she found steady work in regular guest roles in television shows including NYPD Blue, Melrose Place, Baywatch and Boy Meets World. Concurrently, she began earning roles on the silver screen. In the early 2000s, Sandra returned to Alabama to help care for her mother. With the movie industry expanding its Hollywood roots to the East Coast, the move accelerated her career with key roles in blockbusters like Walk the Line and The Hunger Games. She followed with A Walk in the Woods, starring Robert Redford; Self/less, starring Ryan Reynolds; and Prisoners with Jake Gyllenhaal. While movies with A-list actors and award-winning directors have helped increase her visibility to larger audiences, she also finds excitement in working on independent films -- Buster's Mal Heart (Rami Melak) Steel County (Andrew Scott) and Starbright (John Rhys-Davies) and other projects - regular role on the television series Containment -- that stimulate her love of acting. Sandra volunteers with the Mentone Arts & Cultural Center, where she serves as artistic director mentoring high school theater students.