Jessica Paré | |
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Paré at The Paley Center For Media's PaleyFest 2014 Honoring Mad Men
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Born |
Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
December 5, 1980
Nationality | Canadian |
Occupation | Actress, singer |
Years active | 1999–present |
Spouse(s) | Joseph M. Smith (2007–2010; divorced) |
Partner(s) |
John Kastner (2012–present) |
Children | 1 |
Jessica Paré (born December 5, 1980) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is best known for her co-starring role as Megan Draper on the AMC series Mad Men. She has also appeared in the films Stardom (2000), Lost and Delirious (2001), Wicker Park (2004), Suck (2009), Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), and Brooklyn (2015).
Paré was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Anthony Paré, the former chair of the education department at McGill University, and Louise Mercier, a conference interpreter. She grew up in the Montreal neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and has three brothers. She speaks both English and French. Her family is Catholic.
Paré's father was a drama teacher who toured with a theater company, her mother acted in amateur productions, and her uncle Paul was a comedian with the sketch comedy troupe Radio Free Vestibule. She would watch her father at rehearsals as a child and became interested in acting while helping him learn his lines for a production of The Tempest. She attended Villa Maria, a private Catholic high school in Montreal. She studied drama at TheatreWorks and appeared in over half a dozen amateur theatre productions as a teenager, including roles as Maid Marian in Robin Hood and Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.