Cara Buono

Cara Buono is an American actress born on March 1, 1971, in the Bronx, New York, to Rosemary and Anthony Buono. Raised in a blue-collar family of Italian descent, she has two brothers and a sister. Buono attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School before enrolling at Columbia University, where she completed a double major in English and political science in three years. Her introduction to performing came at age 12, when she appeared in Harvey Fierstein's play Spookhouse.

Buono's Broadway career spanned from 1990 to 1995 and included appearances in The Rose Tattoo and Some Americans Abroad. She continued to pursue stage work both on Broadway and Off Broadway alongside her growing screen career. Her film debut came in 1992 with Gladiator, and that same year she appeared in Waterland opposite Ethan Hawke and Jeremy Irons. Much of her subsequent film work centered on independent productions, including Next Stop Wonderland (1998), Chutney Popcorn (1999), Happy Accidents (2000), and Two Ninas (1999), the latter of which she also co-produced.

Her screen credits expanded considerably through the 2000s and beyond. In 2003, she portrayed Edith Banner, the mother of Bruce Banner's alter ego, in Ang Lee's Hulk. She joined the final season of the NBC drama Third Watch as paramedic Grace Foster, and later appeared as Kelli, the wife of Christopher Moltisanti, in the two-part final season of HBO's The Sopranos, which aired in 2006 and 2007. Her performance as Dr. Faye Miller in the fourth season of AMC's Mad Men earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2011. Additional film credits include Let Me In (2010), A Good Marriage (2014), Paper Towns (2015), All Saints (2017), Monsters and Men (2018), and She Came from the Woods (2022).

Buono is perhaps most widely recognized for her recurring role as Karen Wheeler in the Netflix series Stranger Things, which she has played from 2016 through 2025. Her television work also includes appearances on Law & Order across multiple years between 1996 and 2024, as well as a role in the CBS Schoolbreak Special in 1991, for which she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming. In 1999, she appeared in the television film Deep in My Heart in a small role as a young Gerry Cummins.

Buono resides in New York City's Greenwich Village with her husband Peter Thum, founder of Ethos Water, and their daughter.