Vera Farmiga was born in Passaic County, New Jersey, an insular Ukrainian community. As such, Vera didn not even learn to speak English until she was 6 years old and spent the majority of her childhood participating in a variety of community-based activities, including Ukrainian Girl Scouts and Ukrainian folk dancing. Vera, the second oldest of seven children, initially had designs on a career as an optometrist, but changed her mind after a stint at Syracuse University is School of Visual and Performing Arts.

In 1996, shortly after graduating, Vera made her Broadway debut as an understudy in the stage play Taking Sides. A year later, Vera booked her first TV gig alongside future star Jennifer Garner in the drama Rose Hill. She followed that up with a series of bit parts in movies and television shows, including a three-episode stint on the Fox show Roar, where she met future husband Sebastian Roch, from whom she is now divorced. Vera is big break came in 2001 when she was cast opposite Robert De Niro and Ed Burns in the thriller 15 Minutes.

Though she spent the next few years appearing in forgettable flicks like 2002 is Love In the Time of Money and 2004 is Mind the Gap, Vera firmly established herself as a thoroughly talented actress thanks to her role as a drug abuser in 2005's Down to the Bone (which won her a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival). In 2006, Vera was cast in Running Scared with Paul Walker, Martin Scorsese's The Departed and Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering.