Taryn Manning mini-bio: Taryn Manning (born November 6, 1978) is an American actress, fashion designer, dancer and singer/songwriter. She has starred in films including Crossroads, crazy/beautiful, Hustle & Flow, Cold Mountain and 8 Mile.
She is the vocalist for Boomkat, a band she is in with her older brother Kellin Manning.
Taryn has a clothing line, Born Uniqorn with best friend Tara Jane, a brand that has been spotted on the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Tori Spelling.
Manning was born in Falls Church, Virginia. Her parents divorced in 1981, and her mother, Sharyn, worked two jobs in order to support Taryn and her older brother Kellin. Her father, Bill Manning, a musician and hotel manager, was the cousin of Archie Manning. When she was 14, her troubled musician father, Bill, committed suicide. "My dad was a big drinker and he was cheating. My mom fled with us kids in the middle of the night," Taryn has said. Her childhood in a trailer park was tough but happy.
Taryn grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where her mother moved to after her divorce, and later in Los Alamitos, California, where she attended Orange County High School of the Arts.
Manning started dancing at age twelve. She kickboxes and does Tae Bo. She's also a champion dancer, rollerskater, and has a third degree green belt in karate, having been named a State Champion in Karate in Arizona.
On September 22, 2005, Manning discussed her experience as one of 140 passengers on JetBlue Airways Flight 292, which performed an emergency landing with faulty landing gear. Speaking as a guest on Craig Ferguson's late night talk show, she explained, "When we saw our plane on TV as 'breaking news'... it was the most surreal, out of body experience I ever had... I just composed a little something so that if anything happened [family members] would know that our last goodbye wasn't on the phone... A lot of the women of course were crying... There was a gentleman across the way who was writing in his journal and crying, and seeing that isn't easy". Upon landing safely, she described the atmosphere of jubilant cheering and applause inside the airplane, "It sounded like the RCA Dome in there" (where her cousin Peyton Manning plays football with the Indianapolis Colts).
Manning tries hard to keep her love life private.
In 2005 she was "about to get engaged" to her boyfriend of one year, actor Derek Magyar, according to her good friend and pr-woman Siri Garber. After the plane had a scary landing due to its broken landing gear, Taryn told the press: "I wrote little notes to my boyfriend and to my mom and brother. I was not wanting to be writing what I was writing." The note to Magyar said: "I love you so much. Always remember that. Please don't be sad. I'll always be with you." He got the message.
In July 2007 Manning was seen leaving a nightclub hand in hand with a guy.
She had five tiny tattoos, but in 2005 Manning was undergoing painful laser treatment to have her tattoos removed. The actress insists she has "grown out" of her love for skin art and wants all five of her tattoos lasered off. She says, "Now, when I put on an elegant gown, I just don't want to look at them. They bug me." And she's particularly glad to get rid of her 'I love boys' tattoo on her forearm because it brings back bad memories. Manning adds, "There was a boy that I was really in love with. We kinda broke up for a little short time, and I was devastated and missing him. Then I found out he was already seeing someone else and I got really upset. To make myself feel better, I went and got that on my arm."
Manning admits the process of having the tattoos removed was terribly painful. "It feels like when you're cooking bacon and the grease comes out of the pan and stings you."
She is into yoga. "I like to work out to sweat like crazy, and then replenish my body. I have a bunch of little tricks of the trade like that."
In October 2007 she told MTV that "The little bit of fame that I've experienced drives me crazy. I can't even imagine or fathom what she goes through," Manning continued when asked about Britney Spears. "I feel for her."
Manning began acting in the late 1990s, appearing in small roles in several film and television productions, including episodes of The Practice, Get Real, Boston Public, NYPD Blue and Popular. She also auditioned for the American version of Popstars, which aired in early 2001 on The WB.
Her first role in a major motion picture was in the Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez romantic-comedy crazy/beautiful in which she played the best friend of Dunst's character. crazy/beautiful was followed shortly by a prominent role in the 2002 feature film, Crossroads, where she played one of two best friends of pop star Britney Spears. Her subsequent film roles included supporting parts in White Oleander, 8 Mile, A Lot Like Love and the historical epic Cold Mountain.
In 2004 film Dandelion, Manning played a free-spirited Idaho girl whose affair with a former juvenile criminal leads to disaster.
In 2005, she appeared in the drama film Hustle & Flow, opposite Terrence Howard, playing a troubled prostitute in Memphis, Tennessee. The film received critical acclaim and was generally considered a success. Manning was nominated in Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards in category Best Breakthrough Performance for: Hustle & Flow.
Her next film will be Weirdsville, a comedy co-starring Scott Speedman and Wes Bentley. In 2007, she played Ivy Chitty on the short-lived but critically acclaimed Fox television series Drive, which was a drama about various people competing in an illegal cross-country road race. In a comedy film After Sex Manning played the supporting role of Alanna. After Sex is an edgy relationship comedy that uses sex as a background to examine intimacy and vulnerability. It's a humorous, yet honest look at the complexity of modern day relationships told through nine separate couples. Mila Kunis, Zoë Saldaña, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Marc Blucas are also starring in the film. Manning and Saldaña have worked together before, in Crossroads.
Manning is also co-starring in Jack and Jill vs. the World with actor Freddie Prinze Jr. The film tells about a cynical guy falls for a girl with a joie de vivre and a secret, a cultural revolution ensues. Manning and Prinze have been shooting the movie in Canada and it should be out in 2007. Manning stars in 2008 film "Shifter" with Bai Ling and singer Samantha Mumba. The project is in production right now.
In 2003, Manning and her brother Kellin formed the band Boomkat. Their debut album, Boomkatalog. One, was released on March 18th, 2003. The album included 14 tracks. Boomkat released two singles "The Wreckoning" and "What U Do 2 Me." The first single, "The Wreckoning", hit #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. Boomkat's music can also be heard in at least two other films: "The Wreckoning" in The Italian Job and "Now Understand This" in The Hot Chick. In an interview in October 2005's issue of Nylon magazine, Taryn mentioned that Boomkat would be back eventually, and that she is writing songs for the new album once they find another record label. DreamWorks Records was Boomkat's record label from 2002 to 2004. Taryn told: "They can shove it! They dropped us, and it hurt. They didn't like the fact that I was an actress, too."
She sang a rendition of "I'll Take You There" with Tweet in a Gap commercial. Boomkat songs have also been included on the soundtracks to 8 Mile and Crossroads, two films Taryn also co-starred in.
Taryn recorded new songs for an anticipated upcoming solo album, tentatively titled A Million Trillion Stars. Recently on her MySpace page, she has stated it will be up on iTunes very soon. In late 2007 it was announced that the project is not going to be a solo album, but a new Boomkat record. In October 2007 Manning started shooting a new music video, the title is still unknown.
Manning was the December 2007 entry in Stuff magazine's 2006-2007 pin up calendar. She also appeared in the cover of Stuff magazine in May 2007. She has also posed in Maxim and FHM magazines.
She has a clothing line called Born Uniqorn with best friend Tara Jane. Celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Tori Spelling have been spotted wearing Born Uniqorn.
