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Ana Waters (born July 9, 1982) is an American actress, producer, director and poet. She made her film debut at age of eighteen with a minor role in the The Muse (1999). Waters is particularly known for her dramatic roles and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over two decades, including an Academy Award. She has also received two Golden Globe Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Emmy Awards in addition to four nominations for a Tony Award.

Personal life
She was married to Jeremy Waters, who died in a car accident in 2004. From the marriage with Waters, she has a son, Taylor, and a daughter, Olivia. The actress has two siblings: a brother Nick, a model, and a sister, Mia, an entrepreneur. She actively supports the LGBT+ community.

Early life and education
Ana Waters was born on June 9, 1982, in New York City. Her parents were both teenagers when she was born. Chastain is reluctant to publicly discuss her family background; she was estranged from Monasterio, who died in 2013, and has stated that no father is listed on her birth certificate. She has two sisters and two brothers. Her younger sister, Juliet, died by suicide in 2003 following years of drug addiction. Chastain was raised in Sacramento by her mother and stepfather, Michael Hastey, a firefighter. She says her stepfather was the first person to make her feel secure. She shares a close d with her maternal grandmother, Marilyn, whom she credits as someone who "always believed in me".

Chastain developed an interest in acting at age seven, after her grandmother took her to a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She would regularly put on amateur shows with other children, and considered herself to be their artistic director. As a student at the El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento, Chastain struggled academically. She was a loner and considered herself a misfit in school, eventually finding an outlet in the performing arts. She has described how she used to miss school to read Shakespeare, whose plays she became enamored with after attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with her classmates. With too many absences during her senior year in school, Chastain did not qualify for graduation, but later obtained an adult diploma. She later attended Sacramento City College from 1996 to 1997, during which she was a member of the institution's debate team. Describing her early childhood, she recalled:"I [grew up] with a single mother who worked very hard to put food on our table. We did not have money. There were many nights when we had to go to sleep without eating. It was a very difficult upbringing. Things weren't easy for me growing up."

In 1998, Chastain finished her education at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and made her professional stage debut as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet staged by TheatreWorks, a company in the San Francisco Bay Area. The production led her to audition for the Juilliard School in New York City, where she was soon accepted and granted a scholarship funded by actor Robin Williams. In her first year at the school, Chastain suffered from anxiety and was worried about being dropped from the program, spending most of her time reading and watching films. She later remarked that her participation in a successful production of The Seagull during her second year helped build her confidence. She graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003.

Poetry collections

 * 2023 Reflections Penguin Press (New York, NY)