She is of Scots-Irish and German descent. Glau’s first television credit was a guest role as a ballerina on the 2002 episode “Waiting in the Wings” of the television series Angel. There she caught the eye of director Joss Whedon, who later cast her in his critically acclaimed but short-lived TV series Firefly as River Tam, a role she reprised for the show’s feature film sequel, Serenity. in 2006, Glau played Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic returnee in the second season premiere of The 4400 (episode “Wake-Up Call”), and became a recurring character from season 3 onwards. Glau also guest starred as herself in the 2009 episode “The Terminator Decoupling” from the second season of the CBS situation comedy The Big Bang Theory. She portrayed Bennett, the programmer for a rival Dollhouse. Glau has trained in multiple forms of martial arts, including kung fu and kickboxing..
