Pennsylvania-born Maria Bello went to Villanova University to be a political science major, but a drama class altered her career plans. Following college, Bello honed her acting skills in a number of New York theater productions before she was cast as the co-lead in the short-lived TV spy comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1996). Bello gained major primetime exposure, however, playing Dr. Anna Del Amico on NBC's top hit ER during the 1997 season and soon jumped to movies with her performance as recovering junkie Ben Stiller's confidante in Permanent Midnight (1998). While Permanent Midnight was not popular, Bello scored her first hit as Mel Gibson's beautiful cohort in the harsh crime drama Payback (1999). Poised to potentially become one of the select group of actors who have made the transition from TV to film smoothly, Bello co-starred as one of the bottle-tossing, bar-stomping babes in charge of the titular drinking establishment in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Coyote Ugly (2000). Active in the arts off-screen as well, Bello co-founded the Harlem not-for-profit arts and education program, Dream Yard Drama Project for Kids. After Coyote Ugly failed to live up to box office hopes, Bello starred as Ruth Harkness in the IMAX feature based on her experiences with the eponymous creatures, China: The Panda Adventure (2001). Bello finally scored a bona fide critical, if not financial, hit with Paul Schrader's biopic about murdered Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane, Auto Focus (2002). As Crane's co-star and second wife Patricia, Bello held her own opposite Greg Kinnear's bravura performance as the sex addicted Crane, evoking the complex emotions of a spouse who accepts yet ultimately cannot live with her husband's demons.A year after Auto Focus, Bello would score even bigger with the critics with a starring role alongside William H. Macy in the gritty Vegas romance The Cooler. As the cocktail waitress who falls for Macy's sadsack ne'er-do-well, Bello was rewarded for the extreme realism she brought to her character and the film with a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Screen Actors Guild and a runner-up prize from The National Society of Film Critics.Early in 2004, Bello could be seen with Johnny Depp and John Turturro in the Stephen King adaptation The Secret Window. Contrasting that film's luke-warm reviews, Bello next showed up in director John Sayles' well-received political thriller Silver City. Though subsequent appearances in the fairly forgettable Assault on Precinct 13, The Dark, and The Sisters were quick to follow in 2005, Bello's Golden Globe nominated performance as an unassuming housewife who married into mystery in A History of Violence, coupled with her prominent performance as a determined alcohol lobbyist in the critically-acclaimed Thank You for Smoking, helped to get her back in the good graces of critics and end the year on a decidedly high note. In 2006 Bello would join Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, and Maggie Gyllenhall in recreating the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in director Oliver Stone's controversial, fact-based drama World Trade Center.