Betty Gilpin
Elizabeth “Betty” Gilpin (born July 21, 1986) is an American actress from New York City. She is the daughter of actors Jack Gilpin and Ann McDonough. Her father is also an Episcopal priest, and she is a cousin of Drew Gilpin Faust, the former president of Harvard. Gilpin grew up in the South Street Seaport area of Manhattan. She finished Loomis Chaffee School in 2004 and Fordham University in 2008, where she studied acting with Dianne Wiest.
She began with guest roles on TV, appearing in shows like Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Fringe, Medium, SVU, and Elementary. Her breakout came with Netflix’s GLOW (2017–2019), where she played Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagan and earned several award nominations. She also starred as Dr. Carrie Roman on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie (2013–2015).
Her film work includes True Story (2015), Future ’38 (2017), Isn’t It Romantic (2019), A Dog’s Journey (2019), and Stuber (2019). In 2020 she appeared in The Grudge and The Hunt, winning a Critics’ Choice Super Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie, and also acted in Coffee & Kareem. She was in The Tomorrow War (2021) and played Mo Dean in Gaslit (2022).
In 2023, Gilpin starred in the lead role on Peacock’s Mrs. Davis as Sister Simone, a nun who battles artificial intelligence; the performance was praised and earned a TV Critics Association nomination. She also voices Irene in the Netflix animated series Skull Island.
Gilpin published a collection of essays, All the Women in My Brain: And Other Concerns, in 2022. In 2025, she stars in the Netflix western American Primeval and plays Lucretia Garfield in the Netflix miniseries Death by Lightning. She made her Broadway debut in 2025, taking over the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary!.
Personal life: Gilpin married actor Cosmo Pfeil in 2016. They have two daughters, born in November 2020 and May 2024.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:15 (CET).