Shannon Woodward

Shannon Marie Woodward (born December 17, 1984) is an American actress known for playing Sabrina on Raising Hope and Di Di Malloy on The Riches.

Early life

Woodward was born in Phoenix, Arizona. As a child, she moved with her family to Boca Raton, Florida, where she attended Olympic Heights Community High School. There she began acting and later caught the attention of a casting director for Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All.

She is the best friend of singer Katy Perry.

Career

While living in Florida with her family, Woodward starred in several local community plays. Her first on-screen acting job came in 1991 when she played the occasionally recurring role of Missy on cable network Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All. She reprised this role twice during the show's five seasons.

After her sitcom debut, Woodward won small parts in a trio of made-for-TV movies. First, alongside Clarissa star Melissa Joan Hart in the 1995 made-for-TV drama Family Reunion: A Relative Nightmare. Then in 1995, she played Lucy her second made-for-TV film, Tornado!. In 1997 she played an uncredited role in the CBS miniseries True Women.

Between 2000 and 2007, Woodward played a number of minor roles in various television shows including The Drew Carey Show, Grounded for Life, Malcolm in the Middle, Crossing Jordan, Without a Trace, Psych, and Boston Public.

Woodward's big-screen debut came in 2005 when she played Emma Sharp, the daughter of Texas Ranger Roland Sharp (Tommy Lee Jones), who is assigned to protect a group of University of Texas cheerleaders who witnessed a murder in the action comedy Man of the House.

In 2007, Woodward got her big break in the series The Riches, which aired for two seasons (2007–2008) on cable network FX. She played the role of Di Di Malloy, the teen daughter and middle child in an American family of Irish Travellers. In the series, Di Di, along with her parents Dahlia and Wayne (Minnie Driver, Eddie Izzard), and her brothers Cael and Sam (Noel Fisher, Aidan Mitchell) find themselves personally conflicted after stealing the identity of a wealthy couple and trying to assimilate into "buffer" culture in an upscale gated community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

After The Riches ended, Woodward played the role of Leah in the teen supernatural/horror film The Haunting of Molly Hartley.

Woodward's return to TV was the 2009 pilot Limelight, about a New York City school for performing arts. The series was not picked up.

That same year, Woodward played a recurring role on NBC's ER in the fifteenth and final season as Kelly Taggart, the younger sister of nurse Samantha "Sam" Taggart. She also starred in another teen thriller The Shortcut.

Woodward appeared in her friend Katy Perry's music video "Hot n Cold" and had a cameo role in Perry's documentary/concert film Katy Perry: Part of Me. Perry, in turn, guest-starred in a season two episode of Raising Hope.

In 2010, Woodward starred in the independent drama Girlfriend. She also plays the lead title character in the upcoming ensemble comedy-drama Claire's Cambodia.

Woodward stars in the FOX sitcom Raising Hope, which also stars Cloris Leachman and Martha Plimpton. She plays Sabrina, a grocery store checkout clerk who is the love interest of Jimmy Chance, the series lead played by Lucas Neff.

Filmography

External links

• Shannon Woodward at the Internet Movie Database
• Shannon Woodward on Twitter