Amber Laura Heard (born April 22, 1986) is an American actress. She played the lead and title character in All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. Heard's first starring role came in 2007 on the CW television show Hidden Palms. Her breakthrough came in 2008 with roles in Never Back Down and Pineapple Express. In 2009, Heard starred in The Stepfather and also had a small role in the horror-comedy Zombieland. She next starred in The Joneses and And Soon the Darkness (both 2010), John Carpenter's The Ward, alongside Nicolas Cage in Drive Angry, and alongside Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary.
Heard was born and raised in Austin, Texas. Her father, David, is a contractor, and her mother, Paige (née Parsons), is an internet researcher for the state. She attended St. Michael's Catholic Academy in Austin until her junior year, when she left to pursue a career in Hollywood. As a teenager, Heard was active in her school's drama department and appeared in local commercials and campaigns. At the age of 16, her best friend died in a car crash and Heard, who was raised Catholic, subsequently declared herself an atheist, due to the influence of the works of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Dropping out of school at the age of 17, to go to New York to start a career in modeling, she then relocated to Los Angeles to get into acting.
