Biography And Filmography:

Jessica Stroup was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and at the age of seventeen relocated to Los Angeles, California to seek a career in acting. She quickly found work as a model and took various small roles in print and television advertising before starting to audition for larger roles. 

Jessica got her first big show business break in a one episode guest appearance on the hit Nickelodeon teen show "Unfabulous" (2004-), starring Emma Roberts as Addie Singer, a savvy middle school student who's not so popular and not so fabulous, but she doesn't mind it one bit. She was noticed by director Eric Bross and asked to audition, and was hired for the role of Eden  in the horror thriller television show "Vampire Bats" (2005) starring Lucy Lawless. 
 

Her first big-screen break came in the role of Ashley in another horror thriller titled "Pray For Morning" (2006), about a group of young high school students who break into an abandoned resort hotel, unaware that it is haunted. Now having both television and movie making experience, Jessica hit the audition circuit determined to create a Hollywood show business career. Her hard work paid off with a small role in the television movie "Southern Comfort" (2006), where the wife of a Southern mobster takes over the family business when her husband is sent to jail.

She then appeared in a string of guest appearances on several television shows including "Girlfriends", "Zoey 101" starring Jamie Lynn Spears, "Grey's Anatomy" starring Patrick Dempsey, "October Road" and "Reaper". This experience gave her the needed attention to attract better roles and more mainstream industry fare. In 2006, she appeared in her first block-buster movie "School For Scoundrels" (2006). Even though her role was a small one, she was working with big-name stars including Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Heder, Michael Clarke Duncan, Sarah Silverman and Ben Stiller. "Scoundrels" was a comedy about a young guy short on luck, who enrolls in a class to build confidence to help win over the girl of his dreams, which becomes complicated when his teacher has the same agenda.

Next was the independent thriller "Broken" (2006), where she played the role Sarah, next to Hollywood big-hitter Heather Graham, where deep in the Los Angeles night, a woman confronts all the wrong turns she's made since leaving Ohio and ultimately meets the biggest wrong turn of all in her ex-boyfriend Will, who's determined to win back her love or die trying. But her big break came in the role of Amber in the horror thriller sequel "The Hills Have Eyes II" (2007), about a group of National Guard trainees who find themselves battling against a vicious group of mutants on their last day of training in the desert. 

Stroup then returned briefly to television work in the fantasy horror series "True Blood" (2007-), a show that follows Sookie Stackhouse, a barmaid living in Louisiana who can read people's minds, and how her life is turned upside down when the Vampire "Bill" walks into her place of employment two years after vampires 'came out of the coffin' on national television. In 2008, she was hired in a leading role next to Brittany Snow for the thriller "Prom Night" (2008), where a girls senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, though a sadistic killer from her past has different plans for her and her friends. 
 

She appeared in two big-budget movie productions during 2008. First was in a lead role in the crime thriller "The Informers" (2008) starring Billy Bob Thornton Winona Ryder Kim Basinger and Brad Renfro, a drama based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel set in 1983 Los Angeles, where movie executives, rock stars, a vampire, and other morally challenged character mix and commingle. Sadly, this would be the last movie for young Brad Renfro as he was found dead of a heroin overdose shortly after the film was completed.

She then starred alongside Mischa Barton and Matt Long in the thriller "Homecoming" (2008), about a jilted ex-girlfriend who has a plan in store for her former lover who is coming back to his small town with a new girlfriend. More big new followed that year when it was announced that the actress would appear in the newly created second generation television show "90210", where a new class starts school at West Beverly Hills High, and she plays the character of Erin Silver. The new series revolves around Tabitha Mills, the matriarch of the family, her son, Harrison "Harry" Mills, a graduate of West Beverly Hills High, who decides to move back to 90210; accepting a position as the principal at his old high school. 

Watch Jessica Stroup In "The Informers" Red Band Movie Trailer 

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