Marie Sirena

Marie Sirena was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to Tim Chapman and Lynn Danielson, and has an older brother, Ross. She is mostly of Norwegian descent. Drawn to the arts even as a child, Marie began acting at age 10 with local theater group The Young Shakespeare Players, performing many uncut Shakespeare plays. She credits this experience with helping her conquer her childhood shyness, and amping up her memorization and performance skills. She's always loved writing short fiction and non-fiction stories, wining several writing competitions from childhood through university. After high school, Marie obtained a degree in Hotel, Restaurant, & Tourism Management from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Her hope was to use the degree to travel and work in nature, which she did directly after graduating, when she moved to Belize for a year to help a start-up eco-tourism hostel. During her year in Belize, a professional photographer came to stay at the hostel, and he instilled in her a love for modeling-they traveled the country together taking fashion photos halfway up waterfalls, underground in caves, in the middle of the jungle or the sea. Eventually, Marie returned to Wisconsin to be closer to family, and to reassess how to reconcile her artistic passions with making a living. She worked in hospitality management, and loved aspects of it, but all the while continued modeling and writing a food column for the Madison newspaper, and then rediscovered acting by performing in independent films. The first indie film she starred in, "Tough Cookie," was an Official Selection at Comic-Con Chicago 2014. Her next film, "The Harbor," was made for the Madison 48 Hour Film Festival 2014, and the film took home awards for Best Acting, Best Cinematography, and Runner-up Best Film. By her last Wisconsin film, Marie had become fascinated with every aspect of film making, and acted as executive producer as well as co-star in the 2017 feature film "The Reason for Jim Season." In 2017, Marie moved to Los Angeles, California to put her full energy into the arts.