Denise Grayson

Denise Grayson, who portrays an intellectual property attorney in 'David Fincher''s movie _The Social Network is a perfect example of art imitating life. She is an actress who IS an intellectual property lawyer. Denise landed her role in The Social Network (2010) after being spotted at a party by the film's casting director, Laray Mayfield. Laray asked her if she was an actor. In the presence of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who were standing nearby, Denise was at first reluctant to admit that she was. But it was a nerve-wracking four months before she knew the role was hers. At first, she didn't even know she was auditioning for a David Fincher movie. In her first feature film, 1999's Puppet (1999), Denise played an FBI agent. Next came a short film Gasline (2001), which won the jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The writer/director, 'Dave Silver', cast her again in his first full-length feature Corn (2004). She followed with three movies for the Hallmark Channel. In Though None Go with Me (2006), she aged considerably, playing a sixty-year-old opposite Cheryl Ladd. This was followed by Pandemic (2007) and the 2009 movie Citizen Jane (2009), playing a bank manager. Ally Sheedy starred. Today, Denise divides her time between homes in New York and Los Angeles. She is licensed to practice law in New York and Florida. Although Denise is immersed in her acting career, she generously donates her time in California doing pro bono mediation work. She also coaches stand-up comedians, though there is no apparent connection between the two activities. While still in her twenties, Denise was in-house counsel for Paine Webber (now UBS) and then for Bankers Trust (now Deutsche Bank) as an intellectual property lawyer with a specialty in technology. Denise was something of a prodigy, entering college in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York at the age of 16, majoring in accounting and economics. She also took courses in public speaking to overcome her shyness. At twenty, she was already studying at the University of Miami School of Law. In her last year there, she successfully tried six supervised felony cases. Upon graduating, she had the opportunity to work as a state prosecutor, but realized this was not the work she wanted to do when she felt sympathy for the defendant in a major murder case. Moving back to New York to be near her parents, both teachers and artists, she embarked on a legal career that was far removed from sympathetic murder suspects. She worked in the early days of the technology boom and the beginning of the Internet. Denise soon struck out on her own, representing most of the major banks and financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, Chase and Prudential. At the same time, she became involved in acting, reigniting her childhood creativity when she played the lead in a number of school plays. She started classes at Uta Hagen's famous HB Studios and continued to study there for years. Juggling two careers, Denise got work as a model and as an actress in commercials while she continued to work as an attorney. Her lawyer friends thought she was nuts, but she quickly found herself in a number of off-off-Broadway plays and low budget movies. Today, she is able to enjoy the fruits of her labors, with her career now moving to a higher level.