Margarita Levieva

Biography

Margarita Vladimirovna Levieva, an American actress born on February 9, 1980, hails from Leningrad in the former Soviet Union, now known as Saint Petersburg, Russia. She comes from a Russian Jewish family, with both grandmothers having survived the Leningrad siege during World War II. At the tender age of three, Levieva started practicing rhythmic gymnastics.

When she was 11, Levieva moved to the United States with her mother and twin brother, Michael, settling in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Although she gained admission to the prestigious LaGuardia High School to pursue dance, she opted to attend a public high school in Secaucus, New Jersey. While working full-time as a fashion buyer, she managed to graduate a year early from New York University with a double major in economics and psychology, along with minors in philosophy, sociology, and Russian history. She further honed her acting skills at the William Esper Studio's Meisner Acting Program in New York.

Levieva's acting career took off in 2005 with a guest role on "Law & Order: Trial by Jury." Over the next few years, she appeared in the Fox series "Vanished" and several films, including "The Invisible," "Billy's Choice," and "Noise."

In 2019, she starred in the independent film "Inherit the Viper." Her filmography also includes notable titles like "It Happened in L.A." (2017) and "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" (2015).

On television, she has played significant roles in series such as "Revenge" (2011–2015) and HBO's "The Deuce" (2016–2019), portraying college student Abby Parker. Recently, she has starred as Jenny Franklin in the Netflix series "In From the Cold," where her character is a single mother who must confront her past