Born on July 21st, 1966 in Bloomington, Indiana.

Arija was Homecoming Queen & a cheerleader in high school.

Currently lives in New York City with her sister, niece and dog, Dizzy.

Father was a professor of Germanic literature at Indiana University.

Arija is a 1988 graduate of Stanford University (she also spent a year in Berlin studying).

After graduating, she moved to New York City, where she worked as a paralegal while taking acting classes.  

She spent her first few years in New York studying privately with Actors Studio teachers and with Bill Esper, the head of Rutgers University's graduate theater program.

Arija made her Broadway debut in 1997 in the Tony Award-winning The Last Night of Ballyhoo. She appeared off-Broadway in Hotel Universe for the Blue Light Theatre Company and in the Playwrights Horizons' critically acclaimed production of The Moment When. 

Arija says she prefers theatre to film or television.

On television, she appeared in 1996 on One Life to Live as Emily di Mauro, and has guest starred on Law & Order and Oz.  Arija has also done numerous commercials.

She also starred as Emma Brody on Fox's critically acclaimed, but short-lived Foreign Service 'dramedy', The American Embassy.

Arija is represented by Rhonda Price of The Gersh Agency.

Quoted as saying "It's a cutthroat business. There's too much talent and not enough jobs. Even if you work really hard, everything you get is luck."

She constantly works on Broadway.

Salary - $100,000 per film.