DURANT, EMILY OLIVIA

[emily]

emily olivia durant.

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/ i want to voice this out loud

full name. Emily Olivia Durant.
stage name. Emily Durant.
nicknames. Emmy, E.D. (like Edi), M&M, Tink, Smurfette etc.
age & dob. Twenty eight & July 15, 1983.
gender. Female.
sexual orientation. Heterosexual.
career. TV/film actor.
hometown. Los Angeles, USA.

/ it's therapeutic somehow

height. 5ft 1.
eyes. Blue.
hair. Blonde.
build. Petite and athletic.
distinguishing features. Very strong bone structure, eerie blue eyes, her 'wonky eye'. She has a very wide smile which reveals too much tooth and gum for her liking.
play-by. Kristen Bell!

/ so i'm moving to new york

loves.

• Animals, especially dogs ...and zoo animals.
  
• Musical films - her favourites (not including animations), in not particular order are: West Side Story, Calamity Jane, Grease, Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz, Bugsy Malone and Moulin Rouge.
  
• Hiking, cycling and running.
  
• Cheating on her diets.
  
• Harry Potter. She loves Neville Longbottom.
  
• Music. She listens to pretty much anything!
  
• The internet. She loves web-humour and memes. And instant messenger. Staying in touch with her friends without having to pay killer phonebills? Fuck yeah!

hates.

• Playdough and plasticine.
  
• Hate crimes.
  
• Horror films, especially those of the torture genre.
  
• Her clumsiness. She's had a few sprains and minor breaks throughout her lifetime because of it.
  
• Bullies and people who seemingly get off on other people's misery (and being the cause of it).

quirks.

• Is freaked out by Playdough (and plasticine). The smell makes her feel nauseous, she can't touch it etc.
  
• Is super paranoid about burglary and can't go to sleep until she knows her house is appropriately secured.
  
• Tends to carry a pair of flat shoes in her handbag (when able to) if she's wearing high heels.
  
• Has strabismus (misaligned eye), which affects her right eye. She inherited it from her birth-mother, who had it corrected as a child.

aspirations.

• Work on the stage more, particularly in musical theatre.
  
• Raise even more money (and awareness) for charity. Particularly heart-related ones.
  
• Start a family.

secrets.

• Had a miscarriage in late 2008. It ruined the relationship she was in with the would-be father. She took some time off from working throughout 2009 to deal with the emotional repercussions of this loss.
  
• Throughout her time off, she did a lot of writing. She has been an avid writer since her childhood but keeps all of her work to herself. She has little interest in being a published writer. Not under her real name, anyway.
  
• Accidentally but fatally ran over a dog seven years ago. It's not that big of a deal but to Emily it's the most mortifying thing in the world because she's a dedicated dog-lover. It still upsets her to think about it.
  
• Glee is her guilty pleasure. She enjoys the soundtracks more than the show (and it's cast) itself.

personality evaluated. Emily's always been a cheerful and dorkalicious sort of person. Right from an early age, she exhibited the characteristics of a class clown in the making. She loved to make people laugh and the way she seemed to have little worry about what other people thought of her remained as she grew up. She considers it to be a great quality, the ability to laugh at yourself and toss aside your inhibitions if only for a moment. She feels embarrassment constantly but she'd rarely let it hold her back. She'd have hated to grow up as someone who took themselves too seriously. Having this attitude also helped her harden her skin and readied her for handling criticism. She believes that everyone is entitled to their own opinion even if it's a negative one - you have to learn to accept that some people will love a thing that is loathed by a similar amount of people. If she stressed or cried over every bad review or nasty comment, she'd never get anywhere in this industry. You have to have a little confidence in yourself and your project. It's all about taking leaps of faith and risks. Now she's not some crazy daredevil type, but Emily does love a good thrill. She's got an adventurous streak and isn't afraid to try something new, even if it seems a little scary. Be it activities or food, she's usually up for trying anything once! If only to have the experience to back up whether she can say she likes or dislikes something, you can't make a judgement unless you've tried it out, right?

At times it can seem like Emily is fearless and unashamed. But that's not true at all. She has plenty of fears, from the irrational types to the more personal and private. One of her bigger fears is that she'll miscarry again - something she feels she'd be unable to deal with again. And as a clumsy character, she is shamed often enough. But as it's been stated before, Emily finds it pretty easy to make a fool out of herself. It was why attempts to bully her in her youth were unsuccessful. She can be incredibly sarcastic and witty, especially about herself. Humour is something reoccurring with Emily, which is probably why she's not to shabby at comedy roles. Definitely the goofy and playful sort, with a very geeky edge. She's a self-confessed dork. Emily's sure that to some people, her vivacious and cheerful attitude can be annoying at times, as is her near-constant joking around. But it's not like she doesn't have a serious side to balance it out. But humour has gotten her through plenty of awkward, uncomfortable or upsetting moments in her life. She can come across as immature at times because her youthful spirit and light-heartedness can be misinterpreted. Something she takes very seriously is philanthropy. Her parents have always been involved in charity work so Emily has been involved and inspired from a young age.

While Emily's quite well-known as an actress, she isn't someone who gets stopped in the street regularly or followed by paparazzi daily. She's a low-key individual at the best of times, a modest and down-to-earth person who prefers staying at home and watching movies to going out clubbing. She adores watching movies, from the blockbusters to the facepalm-worthy cliché comedies. Em loves going to the cinema too, she's someone who likes going out on 'friend dates' to the movies, bowling, to amusement parks or the zoo. One of her favourite things to visit Griffith Park, to go picnicking, walking her dogs or hiking. Travelling for work is bittersweet at times because she loves to travel but she misses home when she's gone. She's thankful for the opportunity though. Emily is a grateful person, she doesn't take things for granted. She feels this way because if it wasn't for the kindness of someone willing to carry her then eventually give birth to her she would have never been born. She's incredibly thankful for the wonderful and dysfunctional family setup that she has. Without it she probably would be the wholesome and quirky little pixie that she is today!

/ i've got issues with my sleep

father. Charles "Charlie" Durant, 55. Danish-born screenwriter.
mother. Lillian "Lily" Durant, 67. British best-selling author (as Lily Baxter).
siblings. n/a.
pets. a Welsh Corgi-Chow Chow mix named Maggie, a Welsh Corgi-Chihuahua mix named Dippy.
other family. Birth mother: Olivia "Ollie" Loker, 53. L.A. based screenwriter. Molly Brennan, 51. L.A. based producer - Olivia's partner. The couple have two children of their own, carried by Ollie: Jacob Brennan-Loker, 25 and Abigail Brennan-Loker, 20. Biologically, they're Emily's half-siblings. She thinks of them as cousins, as she refers to Olivia as her Aunt Ollie.

history evaluated. Charlie Durant first met Lily Baxter during his time as a student at Cambridge University, where she was a guest speaker hosting a Q&A session with wannabe-writers but it wasn't until he was working as an intern for a British magazine that they met properly. She was doing an interview which he was sitting in on and during a cup of tea they struck up an instant-acquaintanceship which over a short period of time developed into a budding friendship - despite an age-gap of eleven years. The pair just seemed to instantly hit it off but Lily was at first cautious about letting their friendship evolve into something more intimate. She was nearing forty while he was in his mid-twenties, in his prime as it were. But Charlie was falling more in love with Lily every second that he was around her. It was never about her status as a best-selling novelist or her money, he could have cared less about it all. They kept their relationship on the down-low for quite a while until he proposed eighteen months into the relationship. The pair desperately wanted a baby but Lily had a history of fertility problems and already knew that there was little to no chance of her being able to conceive their child. She wasn't against the idea of surrogacy and proposed the idea to a very close friend of Lily's, a screenwriter who had worked with her to adapt one of her books to film.

Olivia (commonly referred to as Ollie) was an open-lesbian who had voiced her own desires to have children with the help if artificial insemination. Being a close friend to both Lily and Charlie, she agreed to be their surrogate mother as long as it didn't interfere with her own plans of motherhood. Lily and Charlie married and within months, relocated to Los Angeles where Ollie was successfully impregnated on the first try with Charlie's sperm and thus, created Emily Olivia Durant! The family were always open about Emily's origins and Ollie was always involved even if they didn't live in the same country. The Durant family moved back to Cambridge when Emily was three but she was constantly in contact with her Aunt Ollie, whom she would refer to as her 'Tummy Mummy'. She was nine when she moved back to Los Angeles due to a great job opportunity that Charlie couldn't refuse (seriously, Lily knew how badly he wanted the job so she encouraged it completely even though it meant moving away again). And Emily grew up there as a dorky and funny drama-loving kid. She loved to be on stage more than she did on screen - she began appearing in commercials as well as photographic adverts as a preteen but her 'acting career' began through stage productions in high school and a local theatre. After graduating high school she moved to New York to attend the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, majoring in musical theater.

But she dropped out to take a role in the short-lived Broadway musical version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She also appeared in various other off-Broadway theatre productions including Reefer Madness, a role she would reprise for the film adaptation. Emily's big break came in 2004. First was Gracie's Choice, a Lifetime television movie which received one of the network's highest ratings. She made her debut in a theatrically released film, Spartan but her most notable breakout of all was landing the role of title character in Veronica Mars was gained a lot of attention - and a loyal fanbase. She went on to film a handful of comedy-based movies and appeared in Heroes. But all of her potential and drive to make big things happen in 2009 was put on hold when she suffered a miscarriage in the early stages of her pregnancy in late 2008. It devastated her, ruined the relationship with her boyfriend and resulted in Emily taking a break before coming back to work in late 2009. She's back on track now and is currently promoting her latest work. She's glad to be working again, she feels that having something else to focus on is a great healer. In the meantime she had been doing a lot of writing (she's a chip off the old block, eh?) privately, travelling and working to promote the various charities she supports.

/ christmas came early for me

alias. Laura.
years of rp experience. four +
other characters. Joey, Chelsea, Rob, Tom.
how did you find us. n/a.
roleplay sample. n/a.

[ciara]