Natasha Tonya Henstridge born August 15, is a Canadian actress. In , she rose to prominence with her debut role in the science-fiction horror film Species , followed by performances in Species II and Species III.
For the latter, she won the Gemini Award for Best Actress. Henstridge was born in Springdale , Newfoundland and Labrador , on August 15, , to Helen Henstridge, a homemaker, and Brian Henstridge, a construction manager and business owner. At age 14, Henstridge entered the Casablanca Modeling Agency's Look of the Year contest and was chosen first runner-up.
The following year, she went to Paris to pursue her modeling ambitions. At age 15, she was featured on her first magazine cover, the French edition of Cosmopolitan. Several more magazine-covers followed and Henstridge went on to do television commercials for products such as Olay , Old Spice , and Lady Stetson.
With her modeling career established, Henstridge started doing commercials and decided she prefered acting. Pursued by a team of experts who band together to stop her, she embarks on a killing spree while also discovering her powerful instinct to mate, which would result in her offspring being a threat to mankind. In , she played Eve, a more ambiguous genetic duplicate of Sil, in Species II , which was a failure at the box office.
A few smaller independent movies followed, including Bela Donna and Dog Park , with varied box-office returns. Despite having some reservations about the science-fiction genre, she signed up for John Carpenter 's Ghosts of Mars in the lead role of Lieutenant Melanie Ballard. Henstridge has played a number of roles on television, for example in Caracara and The Outer Limits. From to , she had a recurring role as the speaker's chief of staff on the ABC drama Commander in Chief , which starred Geena Davis as a fictional female U.
