Actress Shawnee Smith was born on July 3, 1970 in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She is the only child of a nurse and a financial planner (who also happens to be an Air Force pilot). Though she was born in South Carolina Smith spent much of her childhood in California, first attending elementary school there when she was young.

Smith made her first appearance in an adaptation of the musical Annie for the big screen. Her part was relatively small, that of one of the orphans appearing alongside Annie. The job was enough, however, to get her another role three years later in a pair of teen melodramas, Crime of Innocence and Not My Kid. Both came out in 1985 and both featured Smith in substantially larger roles than her first. Crime of Innocence earned Smith a Youth In Film Award for her portrayal.

Two years after their release Smith appeared again in the comedy Summer School, which was particularly good for her career given how popular the movie was. In 1988 Smith appeared in a starring role in the remake of the old horror and sci-fi classic The Blob, and in 1989 she appeared with John Candy in Who’s Harry Crumb?. In that same year she also appeared opposite Anthony Hopkins in The Desperate Hours.

Since then Shawnee has continued to gain steady work both in television and in movie. Her television roles included spots on Murder, She Wrote, The Stand, The X-Files, The Shining and Becker. Her roles during this period were diminished from her earlier spots.

Smith has gained most of her recognition recently, however, with her part in the Saw trilogy of suspense and horror movies. In it she plays the recurring role of Amanda Young who appears in the first movie as a victim of psychopath mastermind Jigsaw, the only one ever to escape one of his traps. By the second film, however, Young has gained new notoriety in that she has become Jigsaw’s apprentice and will carry on his legacy of inventive torture should he ever die. She isn’t deemed fit for it, however, as her traps kill both victims, which defeats the purpose of Jigsaw’s work, and she is killed in the climax of the third movie.

While filming the first Saw movie Smith was pregnant with her second child, a boy named Jackson. Her other child is a girl named Verve (after the recording company). The children were fathered by different men.

Smith continues to work actively to this day. Her latest appearances on the big screen include 30 days of Night: Dust to Dust, The Grudge 3, Saw IV (though she doesn’t play a major part in the action, as the movie’s timeline runs concurrent with that of the third movie) and Saw V (though this appearance is debatable, given that her character is dead; if Smith does appear it will probably be through archival footage).