Actor Samantha Weinstein, best known for playing Heather in the 2013 horror remake of “Carrie,” has died at the age of 28.
Weinstein died May 14 in her hometown of Toronto after dealing with ovarian cancer for more than two years. She married in October and was on a belated honeymoon in Japan with husband Michael Knutson earlier this month.
She was “surrounded by her loved ones at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto,” a post on her Instagram account read. “After two and a half years of cancer treatment, and a lifetime of jet setting around the world, voicing a plethora of cartoon animals, making music, and knowing more about life than most people ever will, she is off on her next adventure.”
Images of Weinstein joyously floating against a celestial background accompanied the announcement.
“Sam was actually a living embodiment of a sunbeam,” her father, David Weinstein, told The Canadian Press on Wednesday. “She was so full of positive energy, anyone who ever met her would say that she just lit up every room she walked into.”
Weinstein also starred in the 2011 comedy “Jesus Henry Christ.” The movie, headlined by Toni Collette, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. (Fast forward to 1:25 to watch Weinstein.)
On the small screen, Weinstein appeared in three episodes of the 2017 Netflix series “Alias Grace,” based on Margaret Atwood’s novel.
In her highest-profile movie role, Weinstein portrayed the high school bully Heather who tormented Carrie (Chloë Grace Moretz). In the prom scene below where Carrie unleashes her telekinetic powers, Heather gets her comeuppance.
She was a “very prolific” voice actor, her father told the Canadian news agency, and was still working on the animated series “Mittens & Pants” and “Dino Ranch” in recent weeks.
Around that same time, Weinstein shared photos from her honeymoon in Japan in early May.
“Getting cancer is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but in the strangest of ways it has also been the best thing,” Weinstein wrote in a 2022 essay that focused in part on her relationship with Knutson. “ … I have more love in my life and for myself than I ever could have imagined, and I see every day as a gift.”
