Betty Gilpin Bio
Elizabeth “Betty” Gilpin (born July 21, 1986) is an American actress known for her range across comedy and drama. She first drew widespread attention playing Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagan in the Netflix series GLOW (2017–2019), a performance that earned her three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. The daughter of actors Jack Gilpin and Ann McDonough, she has built a steady career on stage, television, and film, balancing supporting parts with occasional lead roles in projects such as The Hunt (2020) and Mrs. Davis (2023).
Across more than fifteen years of professional work, Gilpin has moved comfortably between network procedurals, streaming comedies, broad studio releases, and off-Broadway plays. She later won a Critics’ Choice Super Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie for The Hunt, and she made her Broadway debut in 2025 taking over the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in the comedy Oh, Mary!.
Early Life and Background
Betty Gilpin was born on July 21, 1986, in New York City, New York, and grew up in the South Street Seaport neighborhood of Manhattan. Her parents, Jack Gilpin and Ann McDonough, are both actors, and her father also serves as an Episcopal priest. She is a first cousin of Drew Gilpin Faust, the historian who served as president of Harvard University from 2007 to 2018. Raised in a household shaped by both theater and ministry, Gilpin was exposed early to scripts, rehearsals, and storytelling as a normal part of family life.
She has described the South Street Seaport block where she grew up as quiet, noting that her family’s home was “one of the only occupied buildings on the block” and that the surrounding area still operated as a working fish market. The neighborhood’s rough edges, combined with parents who understood the demands of performance, gave her a grounded view of the entertainment industry long before she joined it herself.
Path to Acting
Gilpin graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in 2004, where she took part in school productions and dated the future actor and musician Damon Daunno. She went on to attend Fordham University, where she studied under the actress Dianne Wiest and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2008. Training with Wiest, a two-time Academy Award winner, gave Gilpin a serious foundation in scene work, character analysis, and the discipline of live performance.
Her earliest professional credits came through guest spots on television series, with appearances on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Fringe, Medium, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Elementary. She also built a parallel stage career off-Broadway, appearing in plays including Heartless, I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, and We Live Here. Her film debut followed in 2008 with a supporting role in the comedy Ghost Town, opposite Ricky Gervais.
Betty Gilpin Career
Early Career (2006–2015)
Between 2006 and 2015, Gilpin worked steadily in supporting roles on television and in smaller films, sharpening her craft in the long, unglamorous apprenticeship that most working actors face. Her first widely seen recurring role came on the Showtime comedy-drama Nurse Jackie, where she played Dr. Carrie Roman from 2013 through the series’ conclusion in 2015. The role put her in scenes with Edie Falco and Paul Schulze and helped her reach a larger cable audience.
During the same period she appeared in films including Take Care (2014) and the mystery thriller True Story (2015), sharing the screen with Jonah Hill and James Franco. She also continued to perform in New York theaters, building a résumé of stage work that gave her credibility with directors who value classical training.
Breakthrough (2017–2019)
Gilpin’s breakthrough arrived with GLOW, the Netflix comedy-drama inspired by the 1980s professional wrestling league Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. As Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagan, a former soap opera actress who reinvents herself as a wrestler, she delivered a performance that mixed physical comedy with sharp dramatic turns. The role earned her three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and three Critics’ Choice Television Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Alongside GLOW, she took on a string of film projects that broadened her audience, including the science-fiction romantic comedy Future ’38 (2017), the fantasy romantic comedy Isn’t It Romantic (2019), the family drama A Dog’s Journey (2019), and the action comedy Stuber (2019). These films showed her ability to move between broad studio comedies and smaller independent work without losing her dry, grounded edge.
Notable Works and Milestones
Beyond GLOW, Gilpin’s most recognized works include The Hunt (2020), the action horror film Coffee & Kareem (2020), The Grudge (2020), the science-fiction action movie The Tomorrow War (2021), the Starz limited series Gaslit (2022), and the Peacock science-fiction series Mrs. Davis (2023). In Mrs. Davis she played Sister Simone, a nun who battles artificial intelligence in a series that earned her a Television Critics Association Award nomination for Individual Achievement in Drama.
Betty Gilpin Award Nominations
Betty Gilpin has earned multiple nominations across her career for her work in comedy and drama on television. She received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagan in GLOW, along with three Critics’ Choice Television Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the same performance. She was also nominated for a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Movie/Miniseries for her role as Mo Dean in the Starz limited series Gaslit, and she received a Television Critics Association Award nomination for Individual Achievement in Drama for Mrs. Davis.
Betty Gilpin Awards Won
For her leading performance in the 2020 satiric thriller The Hunt, Gilpin won a Critics’ Choice Super Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie. The award recognized her ability to anchor a sharp, darkly funny action film and helped establish her as a credible lead in larger genre projects beyond television.
Betty Gilpin Family
Betty Gilpin is the daughter of actors Jack Gilpin and Ann McDonough, giving her a direct family link to the American stage and screen tradition. Her father, who is also an Episcopal priest, is a first cousin of Drew Gilpin Faust, the historian who led Harvard University from 2007 to 2018. Growing up around two working actors shaped her approach to the craft, and she has often spoken about the influence of her parents on her decision to pursue a career in entertainment.
Personal Life
Gilpin married the actor Cosmo Pfeil in 2016, and the couple welcomed their first daughter in November 2020. Their second daughter was born in May 2024. She has balanced her growing family with a busy slate of film and television work, and in September 2022 she published a collection of twenty essays titled All the Women in My Brain: And Other Concerns. In 2025, she made her Broadway debut in the comedy Oh, Mary!, taking over the role of Mary Todd Lincoln from Cole Escola for an eight-week engagement early in the year.