Becky Ann Baker

Becky Ann Baker (née Gelke) is an American actress born on February 17, 1953, in Fort Knox, Kentucky, the daughter of a military officer. She attended West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia, before earning a degree from Western Kentucky University. Baker has built a career spanning stage, film, and television over several decades.

Baker made her Broadway debut in the 1981 production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, launching a stage career that extended through 2012. Her Broadway credits include Assassins, Titanic, All My Sons, and Good People. Beyond New York, she received a Drama-Logue Award in 1994 for her work in Night and Her Stars, and she is a founding member of the New York-based theatre company The Drama Dept.

On television, Baker is widely recognized for two long-running roles: Jean Weir on the NBC comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks, which aired from 1999 to 2000, and Loreen Horvath on the HBO comedy-drama Girls, a role she held from 2012 to 2017. Her casting in Freaks and Geeks came after series creator Paul Feig and producer Judd Apatow saw her performance in Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan. Her work on Girls earned her two Critics' Choice Television Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Additional television credits include Stephen King's Storm of the Century, the NBC series Kings — in which she played Jessie Shepherd, mother of the protagonist — and guest appearances on L.A. Law, Frasier, Star Trek: Voyager, Sex and the City, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Oz, and All My Children.

Baker's film work includes Jacob's Ladder (1990), Blue Steel, Lorenzo's Oil, Unstrung Heroes, Sabrina, White Squall, Men in Black, In & Out (1997), Celebrity, A Simple Plan (1998) — for which she received a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination — Two Weeks Notice, War of the Worlds, Stay (2005), The Night Listener, Death of a President, Spider-Man 3, Nights in Rodanthe (2008), Hope Springs (2012), Table 19 (2017), The Half of It (2020), and Holler (2020).

Baker has been married to actor Dylan Baker since 1990. The two appeared together in the NBC series Kings, where Dylan Baker played the antagonist William Cross while she portrayed his character's counterpart. They have one daughter.