There are some actors and actresses you don’t necessarily know by name, but you absolutely know by sight. They’re everywhere. They somehow manage to be versatile enough performers to appear in network sitcoms or soap operas, adaptions of popular literary fiction or the Marvel Universe.
Jewish actress Jaime Ray Newman definitely fits into that category. And with her recent role in “The Hunting Wives” on Netflix, it’s more than time that we collectively know her name.
Here are 18 things to know about Jaime Ray Newman.
1. She was born on April 2, 1978 in Michigan. Both of her parents are Ashkenazi Jewish with origins in Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Russia, and England.
2. She’s an Aries!
3. Jaime attended Jewish Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit. She acted in school plays there, including a production of “Oklahoma!” She played the role of Ado Annie.
4. Per her IMDb, at age 6 she started singing at bar mitzvah parties!
5. She attended Interlochen Center for the Arts throughout her childhood.
6. She made her professional acting debut with the Jewish Ensemble Theater in Detroit. She had a role in a production of Israel Horovitz’s play “A Rosen by Any Other Name.”
“That’s what started it. I did this play and I said this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, full-stop,” she told the News-Herald.
7. Her childhood babysitter was Elizabeth Berkeley, aka Jessie from “Saved by the Bell.” Jaime was able to attend the taping of the pilot. “She took me backstage. I felt like queen for a day,” she remembered later.
8. She graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied English and drama. She moved to Los Angeles shortly after graduating to pursue acting.
“I got lucky really early on, I got on ‘General Hospital’ six months after moving out to L.A. somehow miraculously,” she told The Oakland Press in 2011.
9. While living in Chicago, Jaime sang in a jazz quartet. You can see her fabulous singing skills in this clip from the show “Eastwick.”
10. Her first big break in film was a small role in Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can.”
11. Some of her many credits include “Veronica Mars,” “Drop Dead Diva,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife” and “The Punisher.” In the latter show, she played Sarah Lieberman and her character’s husband was played by fellow Jewish actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
12. She married Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv on April 2, 2012 in Tel Aviv. They now have two daughters, Mila and Alma.
13. Together, Guy and Jaime made a raw, personal short documentary called “Life, Unexpected.” It follows the couples’ journey to have children through IVF, miscarriage and stillbirth.
14. “The best part of my job is getting to make a living as an artist,” Jaime has said. “Being on set and on stage, being part of a community of people who all come together to tell stories, to reflect reality or provide escapism.”
15. Jaime and her husband are Academy Award winners! Their short film “Skin” won Best Live Action Short Film at the 2019 Oscars.
16. Jaime starred in and produced the film “Tatami,” co-directed by her husband Guy Nattiv and Iranian filmmaker Zar Amir Ebrahami. The movie tells the story of an Iranian judoka whose government tells her to bow out of a fight against an Israeli athlete.
Jaime has called the movie “a passion project” and “an experience we will never forget.”
17. Check out these BTS photos from “The Hunting Wives.”
18. One of her next projects is the upcoming crime drama “Unspeakable: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey.” She is slated to play Amelia Hunt, a friend of the Ramsey family.
