The daughter of a Greek father and a Swedish mother, Sillas was born in Brooklyn.
[1] She graduated from the Acting Conservatory of the State University of New York at Purchase.
Sillas appeared in Hal Hartley's 1992 film Simple Men.
In 1994, she starred in What Happened Was..., which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and launched Sillas into primetime television.
[citation needed] In CBS's critically acclaimed[2][3] detective series Under Suspicion, Sillas portrayed Rose Phillips, the only female detective in an otherwise male-dominated squad room.