Early life

Benson was born January 8, 1977 in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Diane and Edward Benson, a psychiatrist. She has a younger sister, Danielle, who is an artist. Her father is Jewish and her mother was raised Southern Baptist; Benson grew up attending a Reform temple in Alabama.

As a child, Benson studied music and dance, and performed in the Birmingham Children's Ballet, as well as in local theater. She attended high school (one of her classmates being Joey Fatone) in Orlando, Florida after her family moved there, in part to help Amber pursue acting opportunities, the most prominent of which was an unsold television series called Kids' News, in which Amber was to have been one of two main anchors. The Bensons then relocated to Los Angeles, and Amber began to very quickly land roles in films and on television.

Career

Benson was 14 when she made her feature film debut in the Steven Soderbergh film, King of the Hill.

Benson is best known for her recurring role as Tara Maclay on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character first appeared in the season 4 episode "Hush" and soon became the lover of Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan). Benson remained with the series until season 6 when her character was killed off. In her final episode, Benson was credited for the only time as a regular cast member.

Benson sang in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode "Once More, with Feeling". She provided vocals for the songs "I've Got a Theory / Bunnies / If We're Together", "Under Your Spell" (her solo), "Walk Through the Fire", "Standing/Under Your Spell (Reprise)" and "Where Do We Go from Here?" In 2002, she performed two songs on Buffy colleague Anthony Stewart Head's album Music for Elevators. She also sang "Toucha Toucha Touch Me" (aka "Creature of the Night") at VH-1's celebrity karaoke tribute to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

While still working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Benson co-wrote the movie The Theory of the Leisure Class with director Gabriel Bologna, released in 2001, and directed, produced, edited, and acted in a digital video feature called Chance (2002) which also featured her Buffy co-star James Marsters. She also collaborated with director James Kerwin in 2003 to produce her play, Albert Hall, in Hollywood.

In 2001, Benson worked with Golden, Terry Moore, and Eric Powell of Dark Horse Comics to create the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow and Tara comic book titled "WannaBlessedBe". The following year (2002), she worked with Christopher Golden and AJ (Ajit Jothikaumar) of Dark Horse Comics to create the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow and Tara comic books titled Wilderness #1 and Wilderness #2.

Benson and Christopher Golden produced began a series of animated fantasy films for the BBC with the animation studio Cosgrove Hall. Ghosts of Albion: Legacy (2003) and its sequels are available on the BBC Cult website. Benson and Golden have also collaborated on two supernatural thrillers: Ghosts of Albion: Accursed and Ghosts of Albion: Witchery. These books follow the fortunes of Tamara and William Swift, who first appeared in the BBC computer animated web movie Ghosts of Albion: Legacy.

In 2003, she starred in Latter Days as Traci Levine, alongside Steve Sandvoss and Wes Ramsey.

In 2005, Benson collaborated with artist Jamie McKelvie on a short story within the Image Comics collection Four Letter Worlds. In 2006, Benson collaborated with artist Ben Templesmith on Demon Father John's Pinwheel Blues published by IDW as a four-part split-book, Shadowplay (comic book)|Shadowplay (with work by Ashley Wood and Christina Z.

In 2006, Benson released her second independent feature film Lovers, Liars & Lunatics through her own production company, Benson Entertainment. The film was shot on film and was partly financed by the sale of limited edition "Triangle" Tara Buffyverse action figure. The project, initially called "The Dirty Script," was ultimately titled Lovers, Liars and Lunatics by producer Diane Benson, Amber's mother.

In 2006, Benson also portrayed the "vegetarian" vampiress Lenore on the TV series Supernatural.

In December 2006, Benson and Golden released yet another collaboration, the short novel The Seven Whistlers which is distributed through Subterranean Press in a limited number of signed copies. In September 2007, Benson signed a three-book deal with Ginjer Buchanan of Penguin Books. Death's Daughter, was released by Ace Books on February 24, 2009; Cat's Claw, on February 23, 2010; and Serpent's Storm, in February 2011. On February 28, 2012, the fourth book in the series, How to Be Death was released.

Benson is the co-director with Adam Busch of the 2010 comedy film Drones.

In 2012, Benson played a young Judith Collins in the Dark Shadows audio drama "Dress Me in Dark Dreams". She guest starred in the second season of the Jane Espenson scripted romantic comedy web series, Husbands.

In June 2013, it was announced that Benson has been attached to star in the web TV series adaptation of The Morganville Vampires as Amelie, the founder of Morganville.

Benson has narrated the audiobook Lock In by John Scalzi. In October 2014 published her fantasy book The Witches of Echo Park.

Benson revealed in a January 2015 Reddit AMA that she was "an actress in a former life".

Activism

During the 2008 campaign season, Benson was featured in a Barack Obama advertisement sponsored by MoveOn.org.

Personal life

As of 2007, Benson resided in Los Angeles. She described herself as a "lapsed vegetarian".

From 2002 to 2009, she dated Adam Busch, who played Warren Mears on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The couple have remained close friends.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	Jack Reed: Badge of Honor	Nicole Reed	TV movie
1994	Jack Reed: A Search for Justice	Nicole Reed	TV movie
1995	Don's Plum	Supporting actress
1995	Jack Reed: One of Our Own	Nicole Reed	TV movie
1998	Promised Land	Amy Farnsworth	Episode: Out of Bounds
1999	Cracker	Amy	Episode: "The Club"
1999-2002	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Tara Maclay	Seasons 4-6; 47 episodes Recurring role Main role
2001	The Enforcers	Abby	TV miniseries
2004	Cold Case	Julia Hoffman	Episode: "Volunteers"
2005	The Inside	Allison Davis	Episode: "The Perfect Couple"
2006 2011	Supernatural	Lenore	Episode: "Bloodlust" Episode: "Mommy Dearest"
2006	Holiday Wishes	Danni Hartford	TV movie
2007	Gryphon	Princess Amelia of Lockland	TV movie
2008	Long Island Confidential	pilot
2008	7 Things to Do Before I'm 30	Lori Madison	TV movie
2009	Private Practice	Jill Duncan	Episode: "Finishing"
2010	Grey's Anatomy	Corrine	Episode: "That's Me Trying"
2011	Ringer	Stripper Mary Curtis	Episode: "That's What You Get for Trying to Kill Me"
2012	Husbands	Angry Mom	Episode: "Appropriate Is Not the Word"
2014	Morganville: The Series	Amelie	Web TV Series

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	King of the Hill	Ella McShane
1993	The Crush	Cheyenne
1994	S.F.W.	Barbara "Babs" Wyler
1994	Imaginary Crimes	Margaret
1995	Bye Bye Love	Meg Damico	With Buffy co-stars Eliza Dushku and Lindsay Crouse
1998	Can't Hardly Wait	Stephanie
1999	'Take It Easy	Justy
1999	Deadtime	Patty
2000	The Prime Gig	Batgirl
2001	Hollywood, Pennsylvania	Mandy Calhoun
2001	Don's Plum	Amy
2002	Taboo	Piper
2002	Chance	Chance	Directed, Produced Benson Entertainment Inc.
2003	Latter Days	Traci Levine
2005	Intermedio	Barbie
2005	Race You to the Bottom	Maggie
2006	Lovers, Liars & Lunatics	Justine	Directed, Produced
2007	Simple Things	Sally
2007	Girltrash!	Svetlana 'Lana' Dragovich
2008	Act Your Age	Julia
2008	Kiss the Bride	Elly
2008	Strictly Sexual	Donna
2008	The Blue Tooth Virgin	Jennifer
2008	One-Eyed Monster	Laura
2009	Tripping Forward	Gwen
2009	The Killing Jar	Noreen
2009	Another Harvest Moon	Gretchen
2010	Drones		Co-directed
2012	Dust Up (2012 film)	Ella

Writing

Ghosts of Albion

• Astray (with Christopher Golden) (Subterranean Press, 2004)
• "Legacy" (with Christopher Golden) (Short story, available on BBC site)
• Accursed (with Christopher Golden) (Del Rey, 2005)
• Witchery (with Christopher Golden) (Del Rey, 2006)

Media

• Illusions (with Christopher Golden) (Animated feature, directed by Benson, available on BBC site)
• The Ghosts of Albion Roleplaying Game (with Timothy S. Brannan and Christopher Golden) (Eden Studios, 2007)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• WannaBlessedBe (Willow & Tara (2003) with Christopher Golden)
• Wilderness, Part 1 (with Christopher Golden)
• Wilderness, Part 2 (with Christopher Golden)

Calliope Reaper-Jones

• Death's Daughter (February 24, 2009)
• Cat's Claw (February 23, 2010)
• Serpent's Storm (February 22, 2011)
• How to be Death (February 28, 2012)
• The Golden Age of Death (February 26, 2013)

The Witches of Echo Park

• The Witches of Echo Park (January 6, 2015)
• The Last Dream Keeper (January 5, 2016)

Other

• The Innocent in Tales of the Slayers
• Shadowplay #1-4 (with Ben Templesmith) (2005)
• The Seven Whistlers (with Christopher Golden) (2006)
• Among The Ghosts (children's, August 2010)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]