Juliet Landau

Early life

Landau was born in Los Angeles to actor parents Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Her older sister is film producer Susan Landau Finch, and the sisters spent their early childhood in a Tudor style house in West Los Angeles. Landau is a former professional ballerina, and her mentor was the actress Susan Peretz.

Career

Landau co-starred in Ed Wood as Loretta King and starred opposite Whoopi Goldberg in New Line Cinema's Theodore Rex. She played the role of Drusilla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appearing on Buffy and its spinoff show Angel over the course of six seasons. Steve Vineberg of The New York Times wrote, "The wildly gifted Juliet Landau... plays Dru like an acid-addled cross between Ophelia and Cassandra."

Lead roles in independent films include: "Where The Road Runs Out", "The Bronx Bull", "Fairfield", "Monster Mutt", "Citizens", "Dark Hearts", The Yellow Wallpaper, Darkness Visible, Hack, Toolbox Murders, Repossessed, Carlo's Wake, Life Among the Cannibals, Ravager, Direct Hit, Citizens and a co-starring turn in Henry Jaglom's Going Shopping.

TV guest appearances include: Criminal Minds, Millennium, La Femme Nikita, Strong Medicine and a starring role in the Lifetime movie Fatal Reunion. She just completed a project for HBO directed by Jake Scott. She used her skill with dialects by lending her voice to various characters on the popular animated series Justice League Unlimited and Ben 10 as well as the animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight. She has also provided her voice for three of the BioShock video games.

Lead roles include in the theater include: Awake and Sing at The Pittsburgh Public Theater, the world premiere of Failure of Nerve, "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea", A Streetcar Named Desire", Uncommon Women and Others, The Pushcart Peddlers, Billy Irish, We're Talking Today Here, the musical How To Steal An Election, the West Coast premiere of Irish Coffee and the world premiere of Murray Shisgal's musical The Songs Of War. She played Natasha in a reading of The Three Sisters that Al Pacino put together at The Actors Studio.

Her first work as director was 2008's Take Flight, a short documentary film about Gary Oldman. It is about Oldman's creative process. He has said, "Juliet Landau is an exceptional talent! I entrusted Juliet to make a documentary film about me and I am thrilled with the results! Take Flight is a special film that shows me in a very different light. I will work with Juliet again without hesitation.". Juliet co-directed Dream Out Loud with her husband, Deverill Weekes about make-up artist Kazuhiro Tsuji, who was branching into the world of fine art. The film captures one of his creations from inception to culmination. It features interviews with Guillermo del Toro, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rian Johnson.

In 2009, Landau co-wrote two issues of the Angel comic book series for IDW Publishing, in collaboration with Brian Lynch. The issues (#24 and #25 of the series, appearing in August and September 2009) feature Drusilla, the character she played on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In addition to writing, she contributed numerous ideas and references for both the cover and interior art of the issues. She has stated that she would like to write more comics set in the Buffyverse. She was slated to write a five-part Drusilla miniseries from Dark Horse Comics in 2014, which is now delayed.

In 2012–13, she produced and starred in the play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea directed by John McNaughton at the Crown City Theater in North Hollywood. Her portrayal won rave reviews and multiple awards. The show was extended 5 times.

In July 2013, it was announced that Landau had been cast as a new incarnation of the Time Lord Romana in the Big Finish Productions audio dramas Gallifrey VI and Luna Romana, both of which are spin-offs from the TV series Doctor Who. The character of Romana was previously played in Doctor Who (and in the Big Finish audio dramas) by both Lalla Ward and Mary Tamm. In the mythology of the series, Time Lords have the ability to regenerate into new bodies and personalities, hence not only can the role be recast but, as is in the case of Gallifrey VI in which she co-stars with Ward, different incarnations of the same Time Lord may actually meet.

Personal life

Landau is a member of the Actors Studio and as recently as of 2008 was being mentored by Mike Medavoy.