Summer Bishil Bio

Summer Bishil was a Pasadena, California native. Her family and she left for Europe when she was just three. Summer attended American and British schools in the midst of her family living abroad. They returned to Pasadena just prior to her 14th birthday. Summer was just five years old when she began to fall in love with acting and began her first acting class. Nine months later, she made an agreement with an agent as well as a manager and began to pursue her career full time. In her spare time, she attends college and is working towards completing her degree. She was one of the stars of the future featured in VanityFair's August 2008 cover issue, "Hollywood’s New Wave: Hollywood's Most Hot Kids in Hollywood". Bishil began to take acting lessons at the age of 14. Within a year, she signed a contract with an agency and manager. Bishil's first role was on the short-lived Nickelodeon television show Just for Kicks, followed by appearances on a variety of other children's shows.Bishil's most memorable performance was as the lead in Alan Ball's film, Towelhead in 2007, a film adaptation of the novel with the same name. Slate critic Dana Stevens said, "Her performance is the most authentic in a film that for all its good intentions, is completely fake and somewhat embarrassing, as an extended PSA about inappropriate touching." Bob Strauss, a Los Angeles journalist at the newspaper, declared that Bishil "...is among the top natural film actresses in recent years. In the September 12 Los Angeles Times review, Gary Goldstein stated that Summer Bishil who is a "...newcomer, gives an intense and thrilling performance as Jasira. "In 2009, she shot Wayne Kramer's new project, Crossing Over, starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd, a portrayal which received some praise from Associated Press's Jay Reiner. She was selected to play Azula in M. Night Shyamalan's 2010 film The Last Airbender. This was to be the primary theme of the planned but never produced sequel.