Bryce Dallas Howard

Bryce Dallas Howard was born on March 2, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, to writer Cheryl Howard and filmmaker Ron Howard. The eldest of four siblings, she grew up in Armonk, New York, and on a farm in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her paternal grandparents were actors Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard, and her uncle is actor Clint Howard. Actor Henry Winkler served as her godfather. Howard and her siblings were raised without television access, with their parents encouraging outdoor activities instead. She began training at Stagedoor Manor, a performing arts camp in upstate New York, where Natalie Portman was among her fellow students. After attending Greenwich Country Day School and graduating from Byram Hills High School in 1999, she enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she took classes at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, the Experimental Theatre Wing, and the International Theatre Workshop in Amsterdam. During that period she also participated in the concept recording of the Broadway-bound musical A Tale of Two Cities. She left NYU before completing her degree to pursue acting roles, though she returned nearly two decades later and graduated in 2020. She is additionally an alumna of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's School in Chicago and The Actors Center in New York City, and was a member of Theater Mitu, a company in residence at New York Theatre Workshop.

Howard built her early career in New York theatrical productions. In 2002 she appeared in House and Garden, an Alan Ayckbourn production at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Her Broadway credit came in 2003 with Tartuffe, staged at the American Airlines Theatre. That same year she performed as Rosalind in William Shakespeare's As You Like It at The Public Theater, a role that brought her to the attention of director M. Night Shyamalan, who cast her without an audition in his thriller The Village (2004). In that film she portrayed Ivy, a blind young woman, opposite Joaquin Phoenix. Shyamalan subsequently cast her as a naiad-like character in Lady in the Water (2006), opposite Paul Giamatti.

Howard reprised the role of Rosalind in Kenneth Branagh's 2006 film adaptation of As You Like It, which received a theatrical release in Europe before premiering on HBO in the United States. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film at the 65th Golden Globe Awards. That year she also wrote and directed a short film titled Orchids for Glamour magazine's Reel Moments series, funded by Cartier and FilmAid International. In 2007 she appeared as Gwen Stacy in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3, the highest-grossing installment of that trilogy, for which she dyed her hair blonde and performed many of her own stunts. She followed that with a role as Kate Connor in Terminator Salvation (2009), replacing Claire Danes in the part. Also in 2009, she starred opposite Chris Evans in The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, an independent film based on a 1957 Tennessee Williams screenplay that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Howard joined the Twilight franchise for its third installment, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), replacing Rachelle Lefevre as the vampire Victoria. She appeared in Clint Eastwood's Hereafter (2010) as a love interest of Matt Damon's character, and in 2011 played Hilly Holbrook in Tate Taylor's adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help, portraying a racist socialite in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. That same year she appeared in the comedy-drama 50/50. Howard went on to star as Claire Dearing in the Jurassic World trilogy, which ran from 2015 to 2022 and ranked among the top-grossing film franchises of that period. Additional film credits include Pete's Dragon (2016) and the musical film Rocketman (2019).

Alongside her acting work, Howard has pursued a career as a director. She directed the documentary Dads in 2019 and helmed multiple episodes of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian between 2019 and 2023, as well as an episode of The Book of Boba Fett in 2022.