Monica Keena

Keena was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents are William Junior,

a financial sales manager, and Mary Catherine Keena, a nurse. She has a sister, Samantha, who is two years older.

Keena attended Saint Ann's, a progressive private school in Brooklyn Heights. She auditioned for LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts at the age of 13, and was accepted into both the dramatic and vocal arts departments.Following her television film debut in A Promise Kept: The Oksana Baiul Story, where she played the title character, Keena took a supporting role in the 1995 romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping. Her first major role in a feature film came in 1997, when she starred as Lilliana "Lilli" Hoffman in the folklore-inspired gothic horror film, Snow White: A Tale of Terror. She appeared in a small role in Taylor Hackford's The Devil's Advocate that same year.

In the Rob Schmidt-directed Crime and Punishment in Suburbia (2000), Keena played the principal role of Roseanne Skolnick, an outwardly popular high schooler with a dysfunctional home life. Describing it as "messy but hungry ... the kind of movie that lives and breathes", film critic Roger Ebert said of Keena, "[She] does a great deal with Roseanne, a character who is herself an actress–pretending to be a daughter, a girlfriend, a cheerleader, all the time screaming inside". Suburbia was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at that year's Sundance Film Festival.

Keena starred as "final girl" Lori Campbell in the 2003 slasher film, Freddy vs. Jason, a crossover between the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises. Directed by Ronny Yu, FvJ was a financial success, grossing USD$117 million at the box office. A mixture of parts in mainstream and independent comedies—Bad Girls from Valley High, Man of the House (both 2005), Fifty Pills (2006)—came next, as did the Mafia drama Brooklyn Rules (2007) and a headline role in Night of the Demons (2009), a remake of the 1988 horror movie of the same name.

Alongside recurring appearances as Abby Morgan on Dawson's Creek (1998–1999), Kristen on Entourage (2004–2005), and a starring role as college student Rachel Lindquist on Judd Apatow's short-lived cult hit sitcom, Undeclared (2001–2002), Keena played a string of television guest roles throughout the 2000s, on series such as Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Without a Trace, and CSI. For her portrayal of Bonnie Crasnoff—a patient who is severely injured in a train accident—on the second season of medical drama Grey's Anatomy, Keena was nominated for a 2006 Gold Derby Award. The episode attracted a U.S. audience of 16.67 million viewers and received universal praise from critics, with many since referring to it as one of the series' greatest episodes.