Carrie Coon

Carrie Alexandra Coon was born on January 24, 1981, in Copley, Ohio, to Paula (née Ploenes) and John Coon. She grew up alongside an older sister, an older brother, and two younger brothers, and graduated from Copley High School in 1999. She went on to earn a BA in English and Spanish from the University of Mount Union in 2003, followed by an MFA in acting from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2006.

Coon launched her professional career in regional theater immediately after completing her graduate degree, joining the Madison Repertory Theatre for her stage debut in a production of Our Town. She subsequently spent four seasons with the American Players Theatre before relocating to Chicago in 2008, where she made her local debut in a production of Brontë at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company. During those years she divided her time among Chicago productions, Milwaukee engagements, and continued seasons with the American Players Theatre, supporting herself in part through motion capture work for a Wisconsin-based video game company.

Her career breakthrough came in 2010 when the Steppenwolf Theatre Company cast her as Honey in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a role that traveled from Chicago to Washington, D.C., before arriving on Broadway in 2012. The revival marked Coon's Broadway debut and earned her both a Theatre World Award in 2013 and a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She also made her screen debut during this period, appearing in an episode of the NBC series The Playboy Club in 2011, followed by guest appearances on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Ironside, and Intelligence.

Coon's television profile rose substantially when she was cast as widow Nora Durst in the HBO drama series The Leftovers, which ran from 2014 to 2017. The role brought her the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. That same year she made her film debut in David Fincher's Gone Girl. In 2017 she starred as police chief Gloria Burgle in the third season of the FX anthology series Fargo, earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and a TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama, the latter recognizing her work on both Fargo and The Leftovers. Also in 2017, she appeared as real-life journalist Meg Greenfield in Steven Spielberg's historical drama The Post.

Her film work continued to expand with the Steve McQueen heist thriller Widows in 2018, the same year she provided voice and motion capture for the character Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Infinity War, a role she reprised in Avengers: Endgame in 2019. She received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in The Nest in 2020. In 2021 she appeared in Ghostbusters: Afterlife as the daughter of Egon Spengler, returning for the sequel Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in 2024. Her film His Three Daughters, directed by Azazel Jacobs, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released by Netflix in September 2024. She also appeared in Boston Strangler in 2023.

On television, Coon joined the cast of the HBO period drama The Gilded Age in 2020, playing the matriarch Bertha Russell in a series that began airing in 2022; the role earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. In January 2024 she joined the cast of the third season of HBO's The White Lotus, which premiered in February 2025 and brought her a third Emmy nomination, this time for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

Coon returned to Broadway with Tracy Letts' play Bug at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, with performances beginning in December 2025, reprising a role she had previously played at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2020 and 2021. Her Broadway activity thus spans from 2012 to 2026. Off Broadway, she starred in the lead role of Placebo at Playwrights Horizons in early 2015, and she was among six actresses portraying the title character in Mary Page Marlowe for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 2016.

Coon married actor and playwright Tracy Letts in 2013. The couple have a son born in 2018 and a daughter born in 2021.