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Charisma Lee Carpenter is an American actress best known for her work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel as Cordelia Chase. She was born on July 23, 1970 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Charisma is of Mexican and Cherokee descent and was named after an Avon perfume. She disliked the name so much she didn't adjust to using it until she was 13.
Early Life
Charisma studied ballet starting at age five and entered beauty pageants. She attended the Catholic Bishop Gorman High School until her family moved to Rosarita City, Mexico when she was fifteen. While living in Mexico, Charisma commuted to San Diego where she attended the Chula Vista School of Creative and Performing Arts and focused on classical dance. She was a cheerleader and a typical teenager. She worried that her tendency towards pensiveness would caused her to be mistaken as a snob. She graduated in 1988 and traveled to Europe before returning to San Diego for college.
She worked several jobs, waitressing at her father’s restaurant, property management and video clerk before going back to school to study teaching. She became a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers in 1991 and moved to Los Angeles in 1992 to visit a boyfriend. She waitressed at Mirabelle restaurant in LA and after being told several times to try acting, she decided to try it.
Career
Charisma met an acting teacher through a commercial agent. She audited classes at Playhouse West and began to study acting in earnest. She managed to land an agent and was cast in several commercials. From there she went on to guest star on Baywatch and Boy Meets World before auditioning for the role of Buffy Summers on the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The role of Buffy went to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Charisma was cast as Cordelia Chase a mean, snobby, teenage girl.
Charisma worried about being typecast as a bitchy character but her character evolved and she moved on to a more significant role on the Buffy spin-off, Angel. After the end of Angel, Charisma guest starred on the series The Division, the short lived series LAX and Charmed. She has also played starred in the feature film Voodoo Moon and the TV movies Flirting with Danger, Cheater's Club and Relative Chaos. In 2006, she landed the recurring role of Kendall Casablancas on the TV Series Veronica Mars.
Personal Life
Charisma married Damian Hardy on October 5, 2002. She gave birth to a son, Donovan Charles Hardy on March 24, 2003. She enjoys horseback riding, and rock climbing.
Quotes
"I had my heart set on becoming an English teacher, but stumbled into acting after meeting a theatrical agent in my dad's restaurant in San Diego."
"Initially I was disappointed, but while I didn't see it at the time, I know now I'm better suited to Cordelia. ... Moving from Buffy to Angel was great for me. On Buffy I wasn't all that high on the totem pole as far as responsibility and screen time. That all changed when I joined David [Boreanaz] in Angel. The whole thing has been such a buzz."
I did Playboy for a very specific reason. Not only was it a good financial move, but it was about the place I was at in my life.
Cordelia was good, but it was on a high-school level. As Cordelia changed and evolved, she started to mellow out.
The road Cordelia has traveled, the journey she has taken up to now has been such a joy to play as an actress, because there have been so many chances to do so many different emotions.
External Links
To see specific information, such as individual movies, please click the Charisma Carpenter category link at the bottom of this article. To see other articles that reference Charisma Carpenter, please click the What Links Here tool in the toolbox at the bottom of this page.
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