Penelope Mitchell

Australian actress Penelope Mitchell originally intended to become a lawyer. Thankfully for us, she decided to become an actress instead, giving us roles such as Liv Parker in The Vampire Diaries, Letha Godfrey in the first season of the Primetime Emmy-nominated series Hemlock Grove, and most recently, Renee Picard in Star Trek: Picard. Her film credits include the likes of Hellboy, R.I.P.D 2: Rise of the Damned, and Becoming. She is popular on social media, with close to 100,000 followers on Instagram.

Mitchell was born in Melbourne in July 1991. The daughter of successful parents, she studied ballet from the age of four onwards and was an exemplary student, finishing in the top 1% of her graduating year at high school. Despite initially heading towards a career in law, she chucked it all in to pursue a career as an actress, ultimately moving to Los Angeles to do so.

Mitchell made her screen debut in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2013 that she got her first break — playing Letha in Hemlock Grove, a horror series that won two Primetime Emmy nominations. Soon after that, she was cast as Liv Parker in The Vampire Diaries, which was the most popular show of its time on The CW. She also starred in a music video by Killers frontman Brandon Flowers. In recent years, Mitchell has focused more on movies, but she returned to television in 2022 with a recurring role in the much-anticipated Star Trek series, Picard.