Alison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She starred as Astrid in White Oleander, and has appeared in Matchstick Men, Where the Truth Lies, The Big White, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka, and Drag Me to Hell ; as well as smaller parts in Big Fish, Beowulf, and Gamer. She has also been on television shows such as Tucker and Pasadena.
Early life
Lohman was born and raised in Palm Springs, California, the daughter of Diane, a patisserie owner, and Gary Lohman, a Minnesota-born architect. She has one younger brother, Robert. At age nine, she played Gretl in The Sound of Music at the Palm Desert's McCallum Theater. Two years later, she won the Desert Theater League's award for Most Outstanding Actress in a Musical for the title role in Annie. She went on to perform locally as a child singer, which included alongside Frank Sinatra at a benefit event in Palm Springs. Lohman excelled in high school, and obtained A letter grades in all her school subjects except drama, because she suffered from shyness. During her senior year, Lohman was an awardee of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. She was offered a full scholarship to attend New York University but declined, opting instead to directly pursue an acting career.
Career
In 1997, after graduating from high school, Lohman moved to Los Angeles to pursue a screen acting career. For the next few years, her work consisted of science fiction B-movies, television productions and children's films. Also included was the dark urban drama White Boy. Lohman starred in White Oleander, an adaptation of Janet Fitch’s novel, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn and Renée Zellweger and directed by Peter Kosminsky. Though the film was unsuccessful at the box office, it received generous reviews and her performance met with wide critical acclaim, being described as her "breakthrough role" by media sources. The following year, Lohman appeared in Matchstick Men, directed by Ridley Scott, starring with Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell. Although it was a moderate box office success, Lohman continued to receive critical praise. Later that year, she appeared in Tim Burton’s Big Fish, which continued her trend of appearing in acclaimed but was also a moderate success. In 2005, Lohman appeared in Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies. The film originally received an NC-17 rating for its graphic sexual content, and failed at the box office afterwards. Some critics felt that she was well-suited for the role. Her next feature, The Big White, featured her alongside actors Robin Williams, Holly Hunter and Tim Blake Nelson, but nevertheless went direct-to-video. In the same year, Lohman voiced the title character in the English language re-dubbing of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Lohman's next film was the drama Flicka, which was released on October 20, 2006. At the age of 25, she played a 16-year-old girl who befriends a wild mustang in the film. Lohman had never ridden a horse prior to filming and trained rigorously for a month. She said that she was "constantly thrown emotionally and physically" while working with the horses for this role. Flicka went on to become a surprise hit in the DVD market. She then played a recovering heroin addict in Things We Lost in the Fire. Lohman, who was frequently cast as a teenager, has said that she believes she "look younger, but act older" than her age. Lohman was then signed to replace Ellen Page in Sam Raimi's critically acclaimed horror film, Drag Me to Hell, which was released on May 29, 2009.
Personal life
Lohman married filmmaker Mark Neveldine in Watertown, New York on August 19, 2009, at St. Anthony's Catholic Church. In 2010, Lohman gave birth to the couple's first child, a boy, named Billy, in Bucharest, Romania, where Neveldine's 2012 film was filming. News of the child's birth was not revealed until August 2011. She has since given birth to two more children. Following the release of Drag Me to Hell and marrying Neveldine, Lohman has somewhat semi-retired from acting with the exception of a few small roles in film projects directed or produced by her husband. She has focused more on motherhood and primarily works as an online acting coach. Lohman is a fan of Nirvana, Paramore, and Keane.
