As a primary member of the fiercest girl group on television — the Pretty Little Liars of Rosewood — Troian Bellisario is definitely a force to be reckoned with. As the cerebral Spencer Hastings, the 29-year-old actress has it made it cool to be smart, eccentric, and naturally curious about things other than fashion and boys. (Although, to be fair, she does get to indulge in the latter to a moderate degree.) And when she’s not on-screen, Troian has made it a special mission of hers to see the world, hone her craft, and essentially inspire her fans to greatness. That being said, do you think you know everything there is to know about this breath of fresh air? Check out these 20 facts below for the full lowdown!
1. Just like her co-star and PLL love interest Keegan Allen, Troian has a license to ride a motorcycle. So badass! (Spencer as a potential SAMCRO recruit? We can see it.)
New level of awesomeness attained.
A photo posted by Troian Bellisario (@sleepinthegardn) on
Feb 2, 2012 at 2:11pm PST
2. Considering how gorgeous she is, Troian could easily coast through Hollywood on her looks alone. However, she’s not the kind of person who places emphasis on outer appearances; she prefers to judge someone’s worth by his/her talent and personality. (AMEN TO THIS ALL THE WAY!) She even took to Instagram one wonderful day to address true beauty standards in today’s society. “What’s beautiful is inside you. It’s your creativity. It’s your intelligence. Your empathy and your kindness to your fellow man. I could care less about being ‘pretty’ or ‘perfect’ and we should all ask ourselves why in our society that is the “highest” and most common compliment we are paying to our female friends. I’m so grateful for your support. And so thrilled to read your words. I love that you love PLL and are kind and supportive to each other. But let’s put this to bed… Foundation and a blow dryer do not a woman make. Rock on everyone.”
A photo posted by Troian Bellisario (@sleepinthegardn) on
Mar 3, 2014 at 2:36pm PDT
3. She’s an animal lover, and she her fiance’s adorable pup, Charleston Zappa, are pretty much the best of friends. (They even go on road trips and shopping for disco balls together!)
the winning team
A photo posted by Patrick Adams (@halfadams) on
Jul 7, 2014 at 5:35pm PDT
4. She’s engaged to Suits actor Patrick J. Adams, and he’s 100% smitten with her! (Can you blame him?) In fact, after their romance fizzled due to travel conflicts and hectic schedules, Patrick decided that Troian was the perfect girl for him and appeared on PLL to reclaim her affection. “Yes, we had broken up at that point, and I decided to audition for the guest role which I normally wouldn’t have and got it,” he confessed. And guess what? It worked, and these lovebirds have been going strong ever since!
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone when you are uncool.” Lester Bangs. – photo @zackdezon
A photo posted by Patrick Adams (@halfadams) on
Jun 6, 2014 at 10:22pm PDT
5. You’d assume that her nickname is Troy, but apparently her friends are a creative bunch and prefer to call her something not-so-obvious. “People call me T, one of my friends calls me T-Rizzle. Anything with a T. T-Bones, T-Bird, T-Rex,” she jokes.
#pllfinale = me (alone) + bad art (alone)/ what else is new?
Una foto publicada por Troian Bellisario (@sleepinthegardn) el
Nov 11, 2014 at 11:56 PST
6. According to PLL co-star Tyler Blackburn, Troian is always the one to start the dance parties on set. “This might be hard to believe as well, but it’s true,” he insisted during an interview with Buzzfeed. “She gets down. I’ve seen her in different forms. The most recent one there was a lot of hair flipping. The way she dances is, like, is this Burning Man? Like she’s at a rave, I’m not kidding. It’s pretty awesome.”
7. She grew up across the street from none other than Hollywood’s most famous twins: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. In fact, Troian made an appearance in one of their earlier movies, Billboard Dad!
Photo Credit: Billboard Dad
8. Troian’s ethnicity is as intriguing as the whole “A” mystery on Pretty Little Liars, and she has her producer parents to thank for her exciting cultural background. Donald P. Bellisario is Italian and Serbian, and her mother, Deborah Pratt, is African-American, English and French.
ABC Family
9. Judging by her obsession with cadavers and science as a kid, it looks like Troian missed her calling as an actress on SVU or Six Feet Under! The actress revealed that she had some, um,
morbid
interesting dreams as a child. “I was younger, I was fascinated by forensic scientists and morticians. I was drawn to work with the dead in some sense, so maybe I’ll go back to that,” she told BuddyTV.
Photo Credit: Instagram via @sleepinthegardn
10. She has great taste in terms of music and even performs with her own band, Family, which consists of herself and Shane Coffey! “My favorites are probably Bright Eyes, Elliot Smith, Arcade Fire and The White Stripes. I think that Jack White, especially on the guitar, is a god,” she’s stated. (Psst. Watch as she and Shane jam it out in the video below!)
11. Just like Elphaba from Wicked, Troian Bellisario defies gravity. Literally. She participates in aerial workouts with Mark Wildman and always looks so graceful while spinning around on her silk ropes!
Photo Credit: Instagram via @themarkwildman
12. She and her good friend Shane Coffey, who plays Holden on PLL, wrote, acted in, and produced a short film called Exiles. And despite her busy schedule, she participated in another indie project titled Immediately Afterlife — this time alongside Shay Mitchell! “The [idea] that my parents instilled in me, because they were writers, was never wait for somebody to give you a role in this business — create the work that you want to be working in,” she commented, when asked to offer advice to other artists.
13. Just like many people in today’s beauty-driven world, Troian suffered from body image issues as a teenager. However, instead of keeping mum on this heated topic, Troian offers eloquent, thoughtful insight in attempt to help others. For example? During an interview with Larry King, Troian explained that she didn’t just want to focus on intimate details from her own struggle — because that isn’t beneficial to anyone. What is beneficial though is identifying the root of the disorder and raising awareness about it to let people know that they aren’t alone in the fight. “Alcohol isn’t the problem,” she pointed out. “It’s the solution to the problem.” And anorexia isn’t the problem. It’s the solution to the problem. So when somebody says, “Okay, I’m going to sit down with you and talk about what you’re feeling, what’s causing you to not want to eat,” you start to begin to address the problem and then you can get back into healthy eating habits.”
14. Right before the 2014 Emmy nominations went out, Troian wrote a thought-provoking essay for The Hollywood Reporter that received a lot of buzz. In it, she calls out stereotypes about teen shows and argues that the stories on such shows are no less powerful just because they’re set in high school. “Many young men and women see something in their favorite teen show beyond the fashion, beyond the hair and the hashtags splattered across the screen: They see a version of their truth, their struggle to feel safe in high school, their loyalty to their best friend, their fear of their first broken heart,” she wrote. Preach!
Photo Credit; Instagram via @sleepinthegardn
15. Her father has produced various shows, including Quantum Leap. And because he was smitten with his baby girl, when Troian was four, he actually wrote an episode titled “A Portrait for Troian.” But wait — it gets even cuter: Troian’s mom played the character….Troian. Overall, she has a pretty awesome family!
Photo Credit: Instagram via @sleepinthegardn
16. She has an intense case of wanderlust. Troian constantly embarks on road trips with her friends and prefers traveling low-key via a bus like the free-spirited bohemian she is!
journey-woman
A photo posted by Patrick Adams (@halfadams) on
Feb 2, 2014 at 9:58am PST
17. She’s a total fangirl just like the rest of us. Not only does she love talking about Harry Potter and pumpkin juice on the red carpet, but she also takes every Game of Thrones death to heart.
Photo Credit: Troian Bellisario
18. Out of 9 siblings (one of her stepbrothers, Sean Murray, played Thackery Binx in Hocus Pocus!), Troian is the youngest — and probably the feistiest. Need proof? Here’s an empowering anecdote about how she jump-started her career the ol’ fashioned rebellious way: “My father still wants me to be a writer, and probably a producer and director, because he thinks it will be, you know, better for my mental state. Which, it probably would. But it was their big rule that if I’m going to act, I’m allowed to do it on summer vacations and winter vacations. The deal that I made, whether they were aware of it or not, was that I will be the most amazing student until I get to college, and then I can study my craft. I can study my passion and nobody can tell me otherwise, because I [would have] done my time being a good student. So when I got to USC theatre school, it was the first day of my life. I was being the person I really always wanted to be instead of being who everyone else wanted me to be. Which is also why I connect so much to Spencer, because so much of her story was who she wants to be versus who everyone else wants her to be.”
ABC FAMILY/Eric McCandless
19. Did you know that Troian couldn’t stand Ian Harding when she first met him? We’re not making this up! “I got into a huge fight with Ian,” she told Rachel Smith. “He just annoyed me.” (Damn! Don’t hold back, girl….) According to the actress, her co-star made an comment about evolution that she didn’t agree with, and unable to bite her tongue, she
gave him a piece of her mind
initiated a debate with him. Thankfully though, Troian is a firm believer in second chances. The two of them have gotten to know each other over the past few years, and now remain good friends!
Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images For InStyle
20. She’s down-to-earth and a self-professed geek….and we asbolutely adore her for it! When asked to describe her high school self, Troian basically painted herself as a cross between Hermione Granger and Leslie Knope. “I was a huge nerd,” she fessed up. “I had giant curly hair—like if I was a cartoon character, I probably would have a huge triangle drawn for my head. I was painfully awkward, and I was valedictorian [at Campbell Hall School], but I was also voted funniest girl because I think I just ingratiated myself into every group by being funny.” Moreover, in an interview with BuddyTV she explained where all her drive comes from. “My family put a lot of pressure on me to do well, but it was also mostly coming from myself. I felt that I had to be the best and the brightest at everything, otherwise I wasn’t worth anything,” she revealed. Add a degree from the University of Southern California’s School of Theatre to the mix, and Troian has proven herself to be quite the academic powerhouse. Moreover, she’s always helping out with various philanthropic causes, which is another check in the plus column. Brains, beauty, and benevolence? A lethal combination, indeed.
Photo by Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for Feeding America
21. She’s brave and isn’t afraid to take chances! Did you know that she almost didn’t get cast as Spencer? It’s true! “It’s funny because after I finished college, I moved to New York to do film and theater,” Troian shared. I got a call from my agent for the audition and I was hesitant because I know what kind of girls they want, I know what they’re looking for. I said, ‘No way, they’re not gonna choose me.’ But I got a callback and they told me just to put more make-up and so I did that, I did my hair for an hour and put makeup than I ever wore. When I walked in, the show’s producer Marlene King totally wrote me off, and told me, you’re not our girl, but after I auditioned and showed them my acting. Marlene said, “Ok, she’s Spencer, I was shocked but glad that I got the role.” And that, dolls, is where determination, perseverance and raw talent will get you!
Everybody else is wrapped except for spencer!!! As per usual let’s finish the season spencer strong! Xx @imarleneking
A photo posted by Troian Bellisario (@sleepinthegardn) on
Nov 11, 2014 at 11:39pm PST
So, sweethearts, what’s your favorite thing about Lady Troian? Did we miss an important fun fact? Tell us in a comment!
*Psst! Check out stunning pics of Troian Bellisario on the red carpet, below!*
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HOLLYWOOD - MAY 12: Actress Troian Avery Bellisario arrives at the NYLON & YouTube Young Hollywood Party at the Roosevelt Hotel on May 12, 2010 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Troian Avery Bellisario
CULVER CITY, CA - MAY 02: Actress Troian Bellisario attends the 1 Year Anniversary of the WIGS Digital Channel at Akasha on May 2, 2013 in Culver City, California. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 07: Actress Troian Bellisario attends the Seventeen Magazine February issue unveiling at Barnes & Noble 82nd Street on January 7, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
UNIVERSAL CITY, CA - AUGUST 07: Actress Troian Bellisario arrives at the 2011 Teen Choice Awards held at the Gibson Amphitheatre on August 7, 2011 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
PALM SPRINGS, CA - APRIL 13: Ashley Benson and Troian Bellisario attend the GUESS Hotel pool party at Viceroy Palm Springs on April 13, 2013 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for GUESS)
UNIVERSAL CITY, CA - AUGUST 08: Actress Troian Avery Bellisario arrives at the 2010 Teen Choice Awards at Gibson Amphitheatre on August 8, 2010 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Troian Avery Bellisario
PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 21: (L-R) Actors Denis O'Hare, Troian Bellisario and Jonathan Groff and filmmaker Kyle Patrick Alvarez pose for a portrait during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival at the Getty Images Portrait Studio at Village at the Lift on January 21, 2013 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
UNIVERSAL CITY, CA - AUGUST 11: Actress Troian Bellisario attends the Teen Choice Awards 2013 at Gibson Amphitheatre on August 11, 2013 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 12: Actors Ian Harding (L) and Troian Avery Bellisario attend the 9th annual InStyle summer soiree hosted by InStyle editor Ariel Foxman and the West Coast Editors of InStyle held at a private residence on August 12, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images For InStyle) *** Local Caption *** Ian Harding;Troian Avery Bellisario
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JUNE 10: Troian Bellisario and Shay Mitchell attends The Paley Center For Media Presents An Evening With "Pretty Little Liars" at The Paley Center for Media on June 10, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - OCTOBER 15: Actress Troian Bellisario attends a screening of ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars" Halloween episode at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on October 15, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD - NOVEMBER 08: From L to R : Actresses Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson and Troian Bellisario arrive at TV Guide Magazine's "2010 Hot List" Party on November 8, 2010 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ashley Benson;Troian Bellisario;Lucy Hale
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - APRIL 08: Actress Troian Bellisario arrives at the Marie Claire's Fresh Faces Party at Soho House on April 8, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MAY 31: Actress Troian Bellisario attends the 'Pretty Little Liars' 100th episode celebration at W Hollywood on May 31, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 17: Actors Troian Bellisario (L) and Patrick J. Adams attends the Entertainment Weekly celebration honoring this year's SAG Awards nominees sponsored by TNT & TBS and essie at Chateau Marmont on January 17, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - OCTOBER 29: Actress Troian Bellisario attends the after party for amfAR Inspiration Los Angeles 2014 at STK on October 29, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for amfAR)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 16: Actress Troian Bellisario attends The Paley Center for Media's PaleyFest 2014 Honoring "Pretty Little Liars" at the Dolby Theatre on March 16, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)