Nadia Townsend

Nadia Townsend (born 27 November 1979) is an Australian actress and film dramaturge. She portrayed Allie Kingston in the Channel 7 police drama, City Homicide, from 2009 to 2011. In 2009 she appeared in the United States produced science fiction thriller film, Knowing, playing Grace Koestler, alongside Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne. She was assistant dramaturge on George Miller's film, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Biography Nadia Townsend was born in Sydney on 27 November 1979 and lived in Gladesville, the younger daughter of television presenter, producer and print journalist, Simon Townsend (born 1945) and his second wife Rosanna ( 1950–2003). She grew up with an elder brother (born 1978). Their elder half-sister Lisbeth Kennelly (born 1968), had been put up for adoption soon after she was born: her parents (Simon and a former girlfriend) had already separated. The Townsend family were reunited with Kennelly in 1992, she had also become an actress. As a child, Towsend began ballet lessons but was removed for talking too much. For secondary education she attended Hunters Hill High School, where she befriended fellow future actress, Rose Byrne, in a year 9 Science class. Townsend studied at the Australian Theatre for Young People, Sydney. After meeting visiting United States film and theatre actor, producer and director, Robert Bella, at age 18, she was accepted as a student at his Atlantic Theater Company, New York.<ref name=" She began working in theatre in 1999 and set up her first theatre company, Wolf Whistle. She acted in the Laurie Foell production, Chambres, in March–April 2000 at Belvoir Street Downstairs Theatre, Surry Hills.