Kate Mara Weight, Height and Build

Kate Mara has not publicly shared her weight, so any figure online is a guess. She is commonly listed at about 5 ft 4 in (163 cm), and as of 2026 she is 43, born February 27, 1983, in Bedford, New York.

Quick facts

Height and build

Height listings give about 5 ft 4 in. Weight is private. Reviewers usually describe her as slender, but that says little. Her screen persona is defined by poise and intensity rather than size, and she’s played everything from a ruthless reporter to a soldier to an astronaut.

Family

Mara comes from a famous sporting family. Her great-grandfathers founded two NFL franchises: Tim Mara started the New York Giants, and Art Rooney founded the Pittsburgh Steelers. Her grandfather Wellington Mara later ran the Giants for decades. Her younger sister is actress Rooney Mara, and the two have often been compared and asked about working in the same industry, though they’ve followed different paths.

Career

She began acting on television, with guest parts on shows like Law & Order: SVU. Her film work includes Brokeback Mountain, Shooter (2007), 127 Hours (2010), Transcendence, Fantastic Four (2015), The Martian (2015), in which she played Beth Johanssen, and Chappaquiddick (2017). On television she gained wide recognition as the journalist Zoe Barnes in House of Cards, a role that became the breakout of her TV career. She also appeared in the first season of American Horror Story.

Animals and advocacy

Mara has been an outspoken supporter of animal welfare and follows a vegan lifestyle, topics she’s discussed in interviews. She has used her platform to promote adoption and animal-rights causes.

Roles that stand out

Three performances show her range. In House of Cards she plays an ambitious young reporter trading information with a powerful congressman, and the part turned her into a household name for streaming audiences. In The Martian, as a member of the Ares III crew, she works in a team of astronauts alongside a large ensemble cast. And in Chappaquiddick she took on a real-life figure in a sobering historical drama. Together they sketch a career that mixes prestige television, big-budget science fiction and serious dramas.

Style

Mara’s red-carpet style leans classic: neutral tones, sharp tailoring and the occasional bold gown. Fashion coverage often points to how easily she shifts between a polished premiere look and a casual, understated off-duty one, and her public image remains more about the work than the wardrobe.

Her projects span genres, and she has said she’s drawn to characters with something to prove. That preference shows across her filmography, where intensity and determination recur.

Personal life

She married British actor Jamie Bell in 2019. Their family life is kept private, and we leave it out of this piece.

Why the weight question comes up

Searches for an actress’s weight are common, but they rarely lead to anything useful. Mara has not discussed hers, and listings that claim to know it are guessing. Her public image is more about her roles and her views than her body. What fans can see is her choice of parts: she often plays women who are smart, ambitious and under pressure, and she tends to commit physically to those roles.

What fans ask

People often ask whether she is related to Rooney Mara (yes, they are sisters), which role to watch first and how she got started. For a first watch, House of Cards is the one that made her widely known, and The Martian shows her in a big-budget ensemble. She began as a young actor with television roles and moved into film steadily.

Frequently asked questions