Picture
       Tessa was born in Scottsdale, Arizona to Catherine McGinley, a real estate agent in Austin, TX, and Scott Farrell, an author and entrepreneur in Ventura Beach, CA. She was raised in Austin by Catherine and Patrick McGinley, former GM of KEYE TV CBS Austin. She has one younger sister, Kelsey, two younger brothers, Ryan and Shane, and has Irish as well as Italian, Cherokee, and German ancestry. Tessa started walking at 9 months and has been moving nonstop ever since. By age 3, Tessa was active in gymnastics, dance, girl scouts and choir. At age 10, she picked up her first video camera and fell in love. Her parents wanted her to get a standard education so she attended public schools and juggled extracurricular activities like soccer, skateboarding, music, dance and yearbook.
​           Upon graduating high school, Tessa knew she wanted to make movies for a living, but to fulfill her parent's wishes, she attended college and earned a Bachelor's Degree in film production from The University of Texas. During school, Tessa was scouted at a local hangout in San Antonio, TX for Tony Parker's music video "Balance-Toi" and has pursued a career in front of the camera ever since. She began studying at different acting studios across the Austin and Los Angeles area to try on various acting techniques.
          After relocating to Hollywood, Tessa landed a small recurring role as a supermodel on HBO's hit TV show Entourage and shot commercials for Nike, Apple, Dish Network, Dodge and others. She was scouted again by actor/screenwriter Ty Granderson Jones to star in his short action film "Diamond" and was nominated for Best Female Action Performer of the Year in the International Action on Film Festival for her performance. ​During her first few years in Hollywood, Tessa began auditioning for various roles in TV and film per the advice of her acting coaches. Within a year, Tessa knew this was not her path and began writing her own roles. 
         Several scripts later, Tessa realized she had to develop other skills to take her characters off the page and put them on the screen so she started producing, directing and editing her own projects. This lead to the creation of her first entirely self-made short film Sin which is now running the film festival circuit and has its world wide premiere schedule for the 2018 Austin Spotlight Film Festival. Tessa recently starred in a film by Hunter G. Williams featuring Lily Tomlin called "The Madness Within" which is set for release in 2019. ​​Tessa is currently developing a slate of 12 original movies to star in.