Maggie Grace

Margaret Grace Denig, known professionally as Maggie Grace, was born on September 21, 1983, in Worthington, Ohio, to Valinn and Fred Denig, who operated a family jewelry business. She attended Worthington Christian Schools from kindergarten through ninth grade before briefly enrolling at Thomas Worthington High School, where she began performing in school plays and community theater. Among her early stage appearances was a 2000 Gallery Players production of The Crucible at a local Jewish Community Center. As a child, Grace was an avid reader who described herself as a "Shakespeare nerd" and developed an early enthusiasm for Jane Austen.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Grace secured an agent within a week and began taking acting classes. Her first credit was Rachel's Room, a 2001 web-based series created by Dawson's Creek executive producer Paul Stupin. Her breakout came with the 2002 television movie Murder in Greenwich, in which she portrayed 15-year-old murder victim Martha Moxley. The role earned her a Young Artist Award nomination in the Best Performance in a TV Movie, Miniseries or Special – Leading Young Actress category. She subsequently appeared in minor roles across several television series, including CSI: Miami, Cold Case, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as the films Twelve Mile Road and Creature Unknown.

In mid-2004, Grace was cast as Shannon Rutherford in the ABC series Lost following a successful audition. She served as a main cast member for the show's first two seasons, living in Hawaii during production of the first season while simultaneously filming The Fog, a 2005 remake of the 1980 horror film, opposite Tom Welling. Her character was killed in the eighth episode of season two, "Collision," after the writers determined that the character's story possibilities had become limited. Despite her departure from the series, Grace joined the principal cast members of season two onstage at the 12th Screen Actors Guild Awards, where Lost won the award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. She was nominated for a Teen Choice Award in 2005 for Choice TV Breakout Performance – Female for her work on the show. Grace later returned to Lost for a guest appearance in the season three episode "Exposé" and reprised the role of Shannon in the series finale, "The End."

Her film career expanded steadily following her exit from Lost. She appeared in the 2007 independent film Suburban Girl alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin, and that same year starred in The Jane Austen Book Club, based on Karen Joy Fowler's novel, playing Allegra, an openly lesbian 20-year-old. Grace, a self-described Jane Austen fan who had read Fowler's novel upon its 2004 release, met with director Robin Swicord before being cast. In 2008, she starred opposite Liam Neeson in the thriller Taken, playing Kim Mills, the daughter of Neeson's character. She reprised the role in Taken 2 in 2012 and Taken 3 in 2014. Additional film credits include the 2009 film Malice in Wonderland, in which she played the lead role of Alice in a modern adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and Faster with Dwayne Johnson, both released in 2010. In The Twilight Saga, she played Irina, appearing in Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2 between 2011 and 2012.

On television, Grace joined the sixth season of Californication in January 2013, playing Faith, a groupie and muse who becomes the personal interest of Hank Moody, portrayed by David Duchovny. Beginning in 2018, she joined the cast of Fear the Walking Dead as Althea Szewczyk-Przygocki, a journalist, a role she continued through 2021.

Grace made her Broadway debut in 2013 in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Picnic, which began previews on December 14, 2012, at the American Airlines Theatre. She appeared in the production alongside Sebastian Stan.

In her personal life, Grace became engaged to Brent Bushnell, the CEO of an entertainment company, in February 2017, and the two married on May 28, 2017. The couple welcomed a son in 2020. Grace has described herself as an Anglophile, having corresponded with a pen pal in the Lake District from the age of eight.