Ari Graynor

Ari Graynor, born Ariel Geltman Graynor on April 27, 1983, in Boston, Massachusetts, is an American actress whose work spans theater, film, and television. She is the daughter of Joani Geltman, a parenting expert, and Greg Graynor, a contractor whose surname was changed from the original "Gryzna." Her mother comes from a Jewish family, while her father, of Polish and Roman Catholic background, converted to Judaism, and Graynor was raised Jewish. She attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, a private institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduating in 2001, and went on to study at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Graynor's professional career began in television, with an early notable role as Caitlin Rucker in season three of HBO's The Sopranos in 2001. She later appeared as a recurring guest on the Fox series Fringe from 2009 to 2010, playing Rachel, the younger sister of Agent Olivia Dunham, and had a brief role on UPN's Veronica Mars as a bus driver's daughter early in the show's second season. She also played Elvina, a pop star, in an episode of CSI: Miami. Among her later television work, she starred in the CBS series Bad Teacher in 2014 and Showtime's I'm Dying Up Here in 2017. In 2024, she took on the role of Leslie Abramson, Erik Menendez's lead attorney, in the Netflix crime drama series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

Her film work includes An American Crime, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007, and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist in 2008. In October 2009, she appeared in Whip It, a comedy directed by Drew Barrymore and written by Shauna Cross, based on Cross's young adult novel Derby Girl. She starred in The Sitter in 2011 and co-starred in For a Good Time, Call... in 2012, on which she also served as executive producer. She later appeared in The Disaster Artist in 2017.

Graynor made her Broadway debut in 2005 in Brooklyn Boy, playing the role of Alison, having previously appeared in the world premiere production at South Coast Repertory. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in The Little Dog Laughed. In the fall of 2011, she played Nina Roth in "Honeymoon Motel," the Woody Allen-written segment of the three one-act comedy program Relatively Speaking. Her most prominent Broadway role came in November 2012, when she starred in David West Read's play The Performers, which opened at the Longacre Theatre opposite Cheyenne Jackson, Henry Winkler, and Alicia Silverstone. Her Broadway appearances also include George is Dead. Between Broadway engagements, she appeared off-Broadway in Trust at Second Stage Theatre in 2010, alongside Sutton Foster, Zach Braff, and Bobby Cannavale, and in Yen, a play by Anna Jordan directed by Trip Cullman, which opened at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on January 31, 2017.

During a June 29, 2017, appearance on CBS's Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Graynor mentioned that she attended a prom with future congressman Joe Kennedy III.