Nicola Peltz is emerging as a force to be reckoned with, on both the big and small screen. Her most prominent roles include the series
Bates Motel (2013), and the films
The Last Airbender (2010) and
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014).
Nicola was born in Westchester County, New York, to Claudia (Heffner), who has worked as a model, and Nelson Peltz, a billionaire businessman whose assets include the Snapple brand of drinks. Nicola is of Ashkenazi Jewish (from her father) and Italian and German-British (from her mother) heritage. She made her stage debut in 2007, opposite
Jeff Daniels and
Alison Pill, in the
Laurence Olivier Award-winning production of "Blackbird", at the Manhattan Theatre Club, directed by
Joe Mantello. In 2012, she starred,alongside
Melanie Lynskey and
Campbell Scott, in
Eye of the Hurricane (2012), a compelling family adventure about a small Everglades community struggling to put their lives back together in the wake of a devastating hurricane. In 2010, Peltz starred in
M. Night Shyamalan's
The Last Airbender (2010), opposite
Dev Patel and
Jackson Rathbone. The film was written, directed and produced by Shyamalan and was based on the first season of Nickelodeon's animated series
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005). Peltz made her feature film debut in 2006 in
Deck the Halls (2006), with
Danny DeVito,
Matthew Broderick and
Kristin Chenoweth.
In
Michael Bay's
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Peltz stars alongside
Mark Wahlberg and
Jack Reynor. She plays Tessa Yeager, the daughter of a mechanic (Wahlberg) who makes a major discovery that catches the attention of the Autobots, Decepticons, and the U.S. government. The film is the fourth in the blockbuster series of live-action films, and is scheduled for release by Paramount on June 27th.
Later in the summer, Peltz also starred in
Kevin Asch's
Affluenza (2014), which received a limited release in July. Also featuring
Ben Rosenfield and
Gregg Sulkin, the film is a coming-of-age story, inspired by "The Great Gatsby," and set among the upper-class in the Long Island suburb of Great Neck during the weeks leading up to the financial meltdown of 2008.
On the small screen, Peltz reprised her role as "Bradley Martin," a troubled high school student, in the second season of A&E's critically-acclaimed series,
Bates Motel (2013). The series is a modern re-imagining and prequel to the 1960
Alfred Hitchcock cult classic,
Psycho (1960), which focuses on the life of "Norman Bates" and his mother, "Norma Bates," portrayed by
Freddie Highmore and
Vera Farmiga.