Ella Ballentine

Name:
Ella Ballentine
Age:
22
Date of Birth:
Jul 18, 2001
Place of Birth:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation:
Actor
Years active:
2011–present

Ella Ballentine - Biography Summary


Ella Ballentine (born July 18, 2001) is a Canadian Screen Awards-winning television, film and stage actress. Ella is known for her roles in a diverse range of projects from musicals through television and film dramas to thrillers and horror.

Ballentine started her acting career in the 2011 Toronto stage production of The Railway Children, directed by Damian Cruden. She attended Mirvish Productions' open call at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where hundreds of kids showed up for the opportunity to play one of the children roles. The production was staged at the Roundhouse Park, a National Historic Site. Ballentine played the role of the youngest daughter, Francis Perks. She continued with her stage career with the leading role of Felicia in Numbers, a 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival play for which she received rave reviews. In 2013 she returned to Mirvish Productions to play the role of Little Cosette / Young Eponine in the highly acclaimed 25th Anniversary production of Les Miserables.

Ballentine's film acting debut occurred in Baby's First Christmas for Hallmark Channel in 2012 where she played Kate, one of the main characters. The TV movie was directed by Jonathan Wright, and featured Casper Van Dien, Rachel Wilson, Natalie Lisinska (who she reunited with in the Good Stars), and Noah Cappe. This movie was followed in 2013 by the role of Jennifer in Atom Egoyan's feature, The Captive, an official selection for the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. The same year Ella shared the screen with Susan Sarandon, Gil Bellows and Christopher Heyerdahl, in The Calling, a feature film directed by Jason Stone. Ballentine played Clara in her next role with costars Emmanuelle Vaugier, Richard Ruccolo, and Eva Link in a 2013 Lifetime movie, Clara's Deadly Secret, directed by Andrew C. Erin.

In her first feature lead, Ballentine co-starred with Laurence Fishburne and Thomas Jane in writer, Adam Alleca's directorial debut, Standoff. The movie was shot on a farm in rural Ontario in 2014, and released in 2015. The same year Ballentine played the co-lead in a family feature, Against the Wild 2: Survive the Serengeti, directed by Richard Boddington. The movie originally intended as Direct-to-video release but it opened in theatres across the United States.

Ballentine was selected to play the role of Anne Shirley in a 2015 Television film adaptation of the classic Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables written by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The first instalment named, L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables previewed in Canada on YTV, on February 15, 2016. PBS purchased the rights of the movie for the United States. The movie also received distribution deals across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Subsequently, YTV has ordered two more episodes (The Good Stars, and Fire & Dew) that were both shot in 2016 with Ballentine as Anne, Martin Sheen as Matthew Cuthbert, Sara Botsford as Marilla Cuthbert, Julia Lelonde as Diana Barry, and Drew Haytaoglu as Gilbert Blyth. All three episodes were directed by John Kent Harrison.

Back in 2015 Ella also landed the role of Lizzy in writer/director, Bryan Bertino's horror, The Monster. In this movie Ella co-starred with Zoe Kazan, and Scott Speedman who she already worked with a couple of years back in the feature film, The Captive. The Monster became an independent success with many award nominations for the movie and also for Ballentine.

In 2013 Ella was invited to the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Gala as one of the "renowned Canadian performers enlivened the evening with dramatic readings of the five prize-nominated titles."



Ella Ballentine - Latest Videos