Eden Riegel

Eden Sonja Jane Riegel was born on January 1, 1981, in Washington, D.C., to Kurt and Lenore Riegel, and grew up in a Virginia suburb. Her interest in acting developed through watching her brother Sam perform dinner theater, which she eventually joined for ten dollars a week. That early experience led to her winning the role of Cosette in Les Misérables, in which she appeared on Broadway from 1987 to 1988, and to subsequent roles on and off-Broadway. Riegel later graduated from the Professional Children's School and enrolled at Harvard University with the intention of pursuing a career in law, though she ultimately left the institution. During the summer of 2000, she served as a White House intern.

Riegel is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Bianca Montgomery on the ABC daytime drama All My Children, a role she first took on in July 2000. Bianca, the daughter of the show's central character Erica Kane, became a landmark figure in daytime television when, in December 2000, she came out as a lesbian to her mother — making her the only openly lesbian character on a daytime soap opera at that time. In 2003, a kiss between Bianca and the character Lena Kundera, played by Olga Sosnovska, became the first lesbian kiss to air on American daytime television. Two years later, a kiss shared between Bianca and Maggie Stone, played by Elizabeth Hendrickson, appeared on TV Guide's list of best same-sex kisses on television. In 2004, Bianca received the first Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for Favorite OUT Image of the Year. During the 2004–2005 baby switch storyline, Riegel also portrayed Bianca in a crossover appearance on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live.

For her performance as Bianca, Riegel received Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series in 2001, 2002, and 2004, winning the award in 2005. She also took home two Soap Opera Digest Awards for Outstanding Female Newcomer in 2001. Riegel and co-star Elizabeth Hendrickson departed All My Children together, with their final episode airing on February 24, 2005. Riegel made several return appearances to the series in the years that followed, including an extended stint from December 2005 through January 2006, a visit in mid-2006 tied to a storyline involving Bianca's sister Kendall, and a return as a contract player beginning in October 2006. In 2008, she rejoined the show alongside Tamara Braun, who joined the cast as Reese Williams, Bianca's girlfriend and later wife. Their union resulted in the first legal same-sex marriage depicted in American daytime television. Riegel departed again in February 2009 and made a further appearance in 2010 for the show's 40th anniversary before permanently exiting the role. On February 22, 2013, it was announced she would reprise Bianca in a guest arc for Prospect Park's continuation of All My Children.

Prior to her tenure on All My Children, Riegel appeared in a small role on As the World Turns as an AIDS patient, guest-starred on Law and Order, and portrayed a minor character in the 1999 feature film American Pie. She also contributed singing and voice work to the animated film The Prince of Egypt. While still playing Bianca, she took on a guest role on American Dreams and appeared in the New York stage production The Sex Lives of Superheroes. In 2008, she joined the cast of Year One, a Harold Ramis comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, which was released in June 2009. That same year, she starred in the web series Imaginary Bitches, playing a character named Eden; the series was written by her brother Sam Riegel, edited by her half-sister Tatiana S. Riegel, and created by Andrew Miller. In April 2010, Riegel assumed the recurring role of Heather Stevens on The Young and the Restless, a part she held through November 2011. She also guest-starred on ABC's Castle as the sister of a murder victim.

Riegel has built an extensive career as a voice actress and voice director. She and her brother Sam both voiced characters in the 2012 PlayStation Vita port of Persona 4 Golden, with Eden voicing Marie and Sam voicing Teddie. She provided voices for the animated series Stitch! and Bleach, and voiced Boscha and other characters in the Disney animated series The Owl House from 2020 to 2023. Additional voice acting credits include Amphibia, The Ghost and Molly McGee, Hailey's On It!, Zombies: The Re-Animated Series, and Primos. In 2025, she voiced the android princess Guinevere in Knights of Guinevere, produced by Glitch Productions, a pilot co-created by Dana Terrace, Zach Marcus, and John Bailey Owen. Alongside her voice acting, Riegel has served as voice director on multiple animated productions, including Amphibia, The Owl House, The Ghost and Molly McGee, Hailey's On It!, Zombies: The Re-Animated Series, Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball, and five episodes of Kiff, the last of which she co-directed with her brother Sam. She received Children's and Family Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Voice Directing for an Animated Series for her work on Amphibia in 2022, The Ghost and Molly McGee in 2023, and Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures.