On December 29, 1982, Alison Brie was born in Hollywood, CA. Best known for her parts in hit TV shows like “Mad Men” and “Community,” she turns 35 today. With her recent Golden Globe nomination for her role in “GLOW,” she certainly has a lot to celebrate today!
Born Alison Brie Schermerhorn, she started acting onstage at her local Jewish Community Center. After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts with a theater degree in 2005, she pursued an acting career. Before breaking into Hollywood, she even performed as a clown at birthday parties. Her big break was playing Trudy Campbell on “Mad Men.” She then starred as Annie Edison in the NBC sitcom “Community.” Aside from her on-screen parts, Brie is a well-known voice actor with roles in “Bojack Horseman” and “The Lego Movie.”
Thanks to her critically-acclaimed lead role in the Netflix series “GLOW,” she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. In the women’s wrestling comedy set in the 1980s, she plays Ruth Wilder, a struggling actress who joins the cast of the female professional wrestling league, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Her character’s struggles with the misogynistic film industry are relatable to the problems recently voiced by the #MeToo movement. Of her role in “GLOW,” Brie shared, “I do feel this role on ‘GLOW’ is the role of a lifetime. I feel so proud of this role. Even working on it, it was the most fulfilled I’ve ever been on a job.”
She’s currently filming season 2 of the show and is a vocal advocate for more TV shows and films that feature complex female characters. In a December 2017 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she explained, “We’re always trying to move forward and diversify and create more interesting roles for women. Actresses will always be looking for something more interesting than “the wife” or “the girlfriend” parts. It’s an exciting time because we’re seeing those opportunities be less hard to find. There can always be more.”
You can also catch Brie in the new film, “The Post,” about the first female newspaper publisher in the U.S. Here’s to many more exciting roles! Happy 35th Birthday!