Trivia

Is a longtime friend of Brian De Palma, original director of 1976's Carrie (1976) which she remade in 2013.

Directed two actors in Oscar nominated performances: Hilary Swank and Chloë Sevigny. Swank won the award for Boys Don't Cry (1999).

Spent years developing "Silent Star", which would have been about one of early Hollywood's infamous scandals, the murder of silent film director and actor William Desmond Taylor. By the end of 2003, Peirce had the film cast with Annette Bening, Hugh Jackman and Ben Kingsley, only to balk when the studio asked her to make a $30-million movie for $20 million.

Peirce is engaged to Evren Savci, who teaches gender studies at San Francisco State College.

Her younger half-brother, Brett, enlisted in the Army at 18 and served in Iraq. It prompted her to develop and direct the 2008 military drama Stop-Loss (2008).

She has a B.A. in English and Japanese literature from University of Chicago and an M.F.A. in film from Columbia University. She lived in Japan for two years and worked as a photographer, and has written magazine articles about film.

Considered directing Memoirs of a Geisha (2005).

She has directed one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Boys Don't Cry (1999).

One of 105 people invited to join AMPAS in 2008.

Graduated from Miami Sunset High School in Miami, Florida and is a former classmate of comedian Mark Ginzo