Annie Parisse

Annie Parisse, born Anne Marie Cancelmi on July 31, 1975, in Anchorage, Alaska, is an American actress who has worked across television, film, and stage. Her father, Louis G. Cancelmi, was a senior executive with Alaska Airlines, and her mother, Annette, worked as a teacher. Parisse has Italian, Slovak, and Syrian ancestry. Her brother Louis is also an actor and is married to Elisabeth Waterston, whose father, Sam Waterston, was Parisse's colleague on Law & Order. The family relocated to Mercer Island, Washington, where Parisse attended Mercer Island High School before moving to New York City at age 18 to study theater at Fordham University. During her time there, she took on lead roles in productions of Medea and Antigone.

Parisse began her television career in 1998 when she joined the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, playing Julia Snyder through 2001 and returning briefly in 2002. Her performance earned her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series in 2001. Early guest appearances included roles on Big Apple, Third Watch, and Friends. In 2002, she appeared in a single Law & Order episode as an exotic dancer before later joining the series as a series regular, placing her among a group of performers — including Jerry Orbach, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Michael Imperioli — who had standalone appearances before taking on sustained roles. She joined Law & Order's main cast in 2004, midway through season 15, as assistant district attorney Alexandra Borgia, a role she held until her character's death in the season 16 finale on May 17, 2006.

Her film work includes a supporting role as Jeannie Ashcroft in the 2002 romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, a minor role as Agent Dawes in the 2004 action film National Treasure, a supporting part in the 2005 film Monster-in-Law, and a 2018 appearance in Paterno alongside Al Pacino. In the 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, she portrayed Lena Riggi Basilone, wife of Marine Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone. Additional television credits include a recurring role as Kara Stanton on CBS's Person of Interest, a regular role on Fox's The Following beginning in January 2013, a 2016 appearance in HBO's Vinyl as Andrea Zito, and a starring role in the 2017 Netflix series Friends from College as Samantha Delmonico.

On Broadway, Parisse starred in a revival of Craig Lucas's Prelude to a Kiss, which opened on March 8, 2007, alongside Alan Tudyk and John Mahoney. She returned to Broadway in Clybourne Park, with her stage work on Broadway spanning from 2007 to 2012. In 2008, she appeared Off Broadway in Becky Shaw, reprising the title role. During the summer of 2011, she performed in the New York Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park productions of Measure for Measure and All's Well that Ends Well.

Parisse is married to actor Paul Sparks. The couple has two children, a son named Emmett, born in 2009, and a daughter named Lydia, born in 2014. They reside in Manhattan.