When not working, she divides her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles.

Her mother is a nuclear scientist and her father is a gynecologist.

Deborah was born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1963 and studied philosophy and economics at the University of Victoria before becoming the first Canadian to be accepted into the highly-regarded Australian National Institute of Art. Graduating in 1988, she went on to star in the TV drama "Bangkok Hilton" (1989) (mini), starring alongside Nicole Kidman and Denholm Elliott as one of the Buddhist co-prisoners, and made the leap to the big screen in various motion pictures.

She fractured a bone in her foot and jumped into a dumpster infested with real rats on the set of The Game (1997).