Biography
Date of Birth
29 December 1996, Perth, Australia
Nickname
Kat
Height
5' 5½" (1.66 m)
Mini Biography
Katherine Langford (born 29 April 1996) is an Australian actress. She is known for starring as Hannah Baker in the 2017 Netflix series 13 Reasons Why (2017), based on the novel of the same name, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 2018, she appeared as Leah Burke in the romantic comedy-drama film Love, Simon (2018).
Langford was born in Perth and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She is the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Langford, a pediatrician, and Stephen Langford, a flying doctor and director of medical services at the Royal Flying Doctor Service Western Operations. She began voice lessons in 2005, and received classical, jazz, and contemporary vocal training. She was offered a place at Perth Modern School for her senior high years, where she studied music and drama, and was sports captain and a nationally ranked swimmer.
Initially during her time at high school, Langford was interested in medicine and politics, in addition to musical theatre. However, in 2012, when Langford was 16, she attended Lady Gaga's concert, the Born This Way Ball, which inspired her to learn how to play the piano. She shared video of herself singing three original songs she wrote: "I've Got a Crush on Zoe Bosch," "Young and Stupid," and "3 Words." "Young and Stupid" is an anti-suicide song she wrote in 2013 after three Perth teens took their lives. For her final year at Perth Modern, Langford stopped swimming and switched her focus to music and performance. She was successful in a number of musical eisteddfods and drama competitions. Langford appeared in the school's production of Hotel Sorrento in 2013 and graduated that same year.
After graduating high school, Langford was determined to become an actor. However, she was rejected from every acting school she applied to, on the grounds she was too young and did not have enough life experience. This led her to begin enrolling in acting classes and workshops in Perth, juggling three part-time jobs, and later finding herself an agent. From 2014 to 2015, Langford studied at the Principal Academy of Dance & Theatre Arts, majoring in Music Theatre, and appeared in a production of Godspell. She was then one of five selected to participate in the National Institute of Dramatic Arts Advanced Actors Residency in 2015. In the same year, she trained at Nicholson's Academy of Screen Acting and portrayed the role of Juan Perón's mistress in the 2015 production of Evita. Langford was offered a position in the Bachelor of Arts program in Acting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and intended to begin studies in 2016. However, she never enrolled and instead pursued professional roles.
Langford appeared as the lead character in a small independent short film, Daughter (2016) which debuted at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. At the end of 2016, after declining the offer from Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Langford auditioned and was asked to test for Riverdale, and Will, a television series centered on the young life of William Shakespeare. She did not get either role, which were instead given to Lili Reinhart, and Olivia DeJonge.
Langford auditioned for the role in the mystery teen drama TV series 13 Reasons Why over Skype and had only 10 days to get an O-1 visa as she had not worked in the United States before. She has received critical acclaim for her portrayal of the American high school student Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why. Langford researched the role, speaking with a representative of the sexual assault awareness campaign "It's On Us" and a psychiatrist who specializes in adolescence. In December 2016, she signed with the William Morris Endeavor agency.
In 2018 Langford appeared in her first feature film, Love, Simon, an adaptation of the coming-of-age novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, by Becky Albertalli.
Trivia
Older sister of Josephine Langford.
Trained with the same acting coach as Olivia DeJonge and Tahlia Norrish.
She was a nationally ranked swimmer at Perth Modern School. She decided to study acting after graduating from the school.
Her first acting gig was in a short film called Daughter, which debuted at Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
She was born to Stephen and Elizabeth Langford in Perth, Australia. Both of her parents are doctors.
She had only ten days to secure a work visa for the United States after being cast in 13 Reasons Why (2017).
She had once planned on following her parents into medicine.
She is a huge fan of Lady Gaga.
Trained with the same acting coach as Olivia DeJonge and Tahlia Norrish. His name is Renato Fabretti.
Quotes
Don't let yourself be small because you want to fit in.
Anything written in the French Revolution, that kind of era, is so poignant.
Often, when you're growing up, you don't know what's wrong. We don't talk openly enough about mental illness. How do you know - especially today with the incredibly high stress teens are put under during high school - if you have depression or if you have a mental illness or if you have anxiety? You don't know, because you've never seen it.
Bullying has existed forever. Everyone has dealt with it, and teenagers, regardless of where they are, are dealing with the same stuff growing up.
What's important is for us to be aware that our actions have repercussions.
To be honest, there is no place like home.
I've always been a little left-of-center at school.
I got into history when I was 11 years old, and it all started with the Titanic. I'd read books in the library about it. Of course I've seen the movie, too - I don't think I've ever cried that much.
I loved music, acting, and drama, but these weren't something I pursued until I was 19.
I have never been attracted to increasing my popularity or hireability by being on Instagram.
I think you always, with anything, need to have different viewpoints.
It isn't that easy to drop character, especially when you shoot for 12 to 16 hours a day for six months.
I had my first screen-acting class in March 2015, and I was, like, 18, turning 19, so it's a risk trying to get into acting when you're that 'old,' in inverted commas.
The first thing that I put in my apartment was a piano. I bought one for $50, and it was a lifesaver because I just went home and played and played... I'm sure I annoyed everyone on the same floor.
When you watch stuff that is YA, it looks like it's been made YA. It doesn't look real.
If I could time-travel, I would either go to the '70s and watch the first 'Star Wars' film the day it opened, or to 1880s London, during the Jack the Ripper era, and experience the true grossness of that time.
This may just be me, but I feel like everyone's dream is to live as an American high school student. There are so many teen films set in America that you live vicariously through them, anyway.
I'm a big historical-fiction fan.
I love sci-fi and period pieces - it's fantasy. I can let myself dream a little bit. But also, I just really love science. I love knowing about how the world works.
Things like putting around a list and having your name on a list that objectifies you, that's a big deal, and it can have big consequences.
A lot of shows and movies that have tried to represent teenagers or the chaos that is coming at that age, they shy away from it, romanticize it, or they kind of fantasize what it's like to be a teenager.
When you're 16 and when you're 17, you're kind of walking that fine line of being an adult and legally being able to look out for yourself, while being able to look out for yourself and being treated as a child.
I don't have Twitter, but Lady Gaga tweeted at me - like, reposted an interview where I was fangirling - and wrote, 'Katherine' with a love heart. And I kind of freaked out a little bit.
Being depressed is not a beautiful tragedy - it's hell and it's agony. Posting photos of someone that you don't have the consent for is illegal, and that's a huge, huge issue. We need to be teaching consent, and that's not just for photos.
It's not that Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter aren't really great mediums - let's be honest; technology allowing us to be able to contact people around the world is fantastic - but it's also so detrimental.
I love the opportunity to affect change in people's lives.
I just want to keep doing good projects with good people.
