Date of Birth

24 December 1981, San Antonio, Texas, USA

Birth Name

Summer Lyn Glau

Height

5' 5¼" (1.66 m)

Mini Biography

Summer is a native of San Antonio, Texas. She's been a ballerina most of her life. Her debut was in various commercials and a guest appearance on the WB's Angel (1999). She has gone on to star on the TV series Firefly (2002) as well as its follow-up movie Serenity (2005) and the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008).

Trivia

• Summer appeared at the Armageddon Pulp Expo in Auckland, New Zealand in October 2006.
• She loves to watch cooking shows.
• She had not actually seen the Terminator movies before being cast in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008).
• Ranked #8 on Wizard magazine's "Sexiest Women of TV" list (March 2008).
• Revealed in a 2005 interview that she originally auditioned for the role of Alyssa in Power Rangers Wild Force (2002), and was the casting directors' second choice for the role.
• Ranked #37 in the 2011 FHM list of "100 Sexiest Women in the World".
• Ranked #26 in the 2010 FHM UK list of "100 Sexiest Women in the World".
• Her ancestry includes German/Alsatian German, Swiss-German, English, Scottish, and Welsh.
• Ranked # 63 in Maxim magazine's "Hot 100" list (2014).
• Mother, with husband Val Morrison, of daughters Milena Jo Morrison (b. January 26, 2015) and Sunny Izabo Morrison (b. October 2017).
• Has worked with Game of Thrones (2011) stars Lena Headey and Peter Dinklage who play siblings Cersei and Tyrion Lannister in the series. Lena Headey played Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008) and Peter Dinklage played Hung in Knights of Badassdom (2013). Emilia Clarke who plays Daenerys Targaryen in that series played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys (2015).
• Summer stated that her parents named her Summer because she was born during the American summertime.
• Summer Glau frequently attends conventions.
• Her parents are Mari and Mark and she has 2 sisters, Christie and Kaitlin.
• It was speculated that Summer Glau's character in Firefly (2002) and Serenity (2005), River Tam, was one of Steven Moffat's influences behind the recurring Doctor Who (2005) character River Song, whom Alex Kingston played from 2008 - 2015.
• In 2012, a Facebook group called "Should Summer Glau have a guest role in an episode of Doctor Who?" was set up as an online campaign for the actress to appear in an episode of the long running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who (2005).

Trademarks:

• Thin build
  
• Often plays crazed or mentally disturbed characters
  
• Often works her skills as a dancer into roles
  
• Often goes barefoot
  

Quotes

• My favorite thing about River [her character on Firefly (2002)] is that she gets to be barefoot so much of the time. I don't like shoes very much. The more things I mention the more things she ends up doing, I remember in the first episode I was thinking, "I really think River needs a gun", and then by episode 10 she got one. I'm working my way up to captain.
• I always look for roles that make me feel good about being a girl. I have to say that there are a lot of roles out there that make me feel really bad about being a girl. You can imagine what the things are and I shall not go into detail.
• Sometimes when I get home after a long day, I'll turn on music--I love Latin, disco, and pop--and do my own workout, even if it's a short one. Know a good song to work out to? "I Will Survive".
• For breakfast, I always have eggs - whole eggs. I think the fats are really important. I also like turkey bacon and really hearty whole-grain bread. I'm very picky about it. You need bread that's high in fiber and low in carbs. It's hard to find, but it's worth it.
• After doing Firefly (2002) and moving on, I always wanted to be part of a series again. I love doing films, too, but there's just something special about being part of the team and feeling like you're actually a part of the family, and I always look to re-create that.
• I'm definitely one of those actresses who comes to a set knowing how I want to do a scene, and I definitely love input from my directors and my writers. I know that there's some actors who like to be left alone, they like to be very independent, but I actually really enjoy the teamwork.
• As I've gotten older, I've come to realize how important it is to vary your workouts.
• I'm very physical. It's an important part of being a woman - feeling good about yourself and really being in tune with your personality.
• I like pretty conservative guys, good guys. I always look for the qualities I find in my father.
• Lying about anything is the cruelest thing in the world you could ever do. Be who you are. Don't try to be someone you're not. It never works.
• I love it if a man makes an effort to get to know my parents and sisters. Getting to know the people who matter to me goes a long way.
• I was always the kid on scholarship, I was a soloist with my company, I'd been working with the symphony since I was 14.
• I still dance, probably three times a week, unless I'm working on a crazy job, and then I just don't have any free time at all.
• The number one thing I look for in a man is integrity. A man who does what he says he's going to do.
• I worked on [Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)] even longer than Firefly (2002). And I always remembered how generous everyone was to me when I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know the rules, and I didn't know camera angles, and I didn't know lighting.
• When I stopped doing ballet, I started training in the pool. I would do my barre exercises in the water, because that prevents injuries.
• I've done other things, but it always seems like my sci-fi projects have been what people respond to the most, because those fans are extraordinary, so passionate.
• When I was little, I had a feeling that I was going to end up being an actress. I spent a lot of time alone, I was a very shy girl, and I would pretend I was telling someone about this new role that I got.
• There's this certain caliber of dancing I was striving for when I was younger, and it's very hard for me to go back and just do it for fun. But I take all other kinds of classes: I take jazz classes, modern classes, and I love doing that instead of going to the gym. The gym is not very much fun.
• You know, I've always just made the choices on my characters based on my connection to them, and I've made decisions that maybe other people haven't understood; why I passed on something, for instance.