Maria Bello Biography

Maria Bello was born on April 18, 1967 and raised in a Polish/Italian household in working class Norristown, PA, where she attended a Catholic school which did not have a theater department. In fact, acting was not even on Bello's radar until she took a drama class at Villanova University as an elective in a schedule otherwise filled with political science and pre-law courses. After graduating with a political science degree in 1989, she threw her intended plans for law school aside, moving instead to New York, where she crashed on a friend's floor, got a bartending gig, and started gaining invaluable experience in off-Broadway plays. Bello struggled for years, making little or no money in independent theatrical productions and the occasional commercial, yet remained unwaveringly committed to her craft.

In 1992, she combined her dedication to the arts with a passion for social causes that had previously informed her law career, by co-founding Harlem's Dreamyard Drama Project. The Dreamyard was a nonprofit arts and education program that paired working artists with at-risk kids, eventually giving a voice and a better chance at academic achievement to thousands of kids across the city.

Maybe it was all her hard work; maybe it was a bit of good karma coming back her way - but by 1995, Bello began getting some professional breaks, landing small screen roles in the TV movie "The Commish: In the Shadow of the Gallows" (ABC, 1995). Maria Bello tough, smart exterior was the perfect choice to play a spy opposite Scott Bakula on the CBS action series "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (1996). With this offer, Bello relocated to Los Angeles and, although the series was ultimately short-lived, it led the actress to regular appearances on the respected medical drama "ER" (NBC, 1994-2009), playing pediatrician Anna Del Amico. Bello showed Hollywood what she was made of with her stunning performance as a tough-loving, recovering junkie opposite Ben Stiller in the film adaptation of Jerry Stahl's harrowing Hollywood heroin memoir, "Permanent Midnight" (1998). Later in the year, Bello expanded on her earlier work with Dreamyard by accompanying a team of artists and teachers on a Save the Children-sponsored trip to Nicaragua, where they shared arts activities with survivors of Hurricane Mitch. In 1999, she embarked on a similar trip to Kosovo and eventually visited India and China, where she similarly documented the world's children through interviews and photographs.

With her reputation as a dependable leading lady beginning to build, Bello subsequently began getting better offers, playing complicated women who were typically hard-as-nails on the outside but warm and vulnerable on the inside. Maria Bello went mainstream with two memorable roles in quick succession: starring as a hooker with ties to Mel Gibson in "Payback" (1999) and bringing her real-life experience to the role of a leather-clad bar-owner and den mother to a pack of midriff-baring barmaids in "Coyote Ugly" (2000). Maria Belloalso appeared as a vulnerable sexpot in director Bruce Paltrow's final film, "Duets" (2000), before abruptly switching gears for the IMAX film "China: The Panda Adventure," a film about a 1930s Chinese panda study excursion. Bello's next role was that of a real-life mother - having given birth to her first child Jackson Blue McDermott in 2001. Jack's father was Bello's longtime boyfriend Dan McDermott, the former head of Dreamworks Production-turned-screenwriter/producer.