Emily Swallow

Emily Swallow is an American actress born on December 18, 1979, in Washington, D.C., who grew up in Sterling, Virginia and Jacksonville, Florida. While attending Stanton College Preparatory School in Jacksonville, she began participating in college, amateur, and professional theatre productions. She earned a BA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Virginia in 2001 and subsequently completed an MFA in Acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Swallow built the foundation of her career in theatre, appearing in the Broadway musical High Fidelity in 2006. Her stage work also encompasses productions of King Lear, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Guthrie Theater, as well as Much Ado About Nothing for Shakespeare in the Park. She appeared in the world premieres of the off-Broadway productions Romantic Poetry and Measure for Pleasure, and starred in Donald Margulies' The Country House at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In 2013, she collaborated with Mark Rylance and poet Louis Jenkins on the world premiere of Nice Fish at the Guthrie Theater, having previously worked opposite Rylance in that production. She also appeared in the Center Theatre Group's production of Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced in 2016 and starred in John Patrick Shanley's musical Romantic Poetry at Manhattan Theater Club. Swallow received the Falstaff Award for Best Female Performer in 2010 for her portrayal of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.

In 2012, Swallow and singer and comedian Jac Huberman created a stage show titled Jac N Swallow, performed at the Laurie Beeckman Theater and Joe's Pub in New York. The show follows the comic misadventures of the two performers as they navigate different life challenges. Swallow made her film debut in 2008 in the military drama The Lucky Ones, and later provided the voice of Lisa Ţepeş in the animated series Castlevania from 2017 to 2021, as well as a minor role as Emily in the video game The Last of Us Part II. She also voiced Puck in Pac-Man: Circle in 2024.

Her television career began with a role on Guiding Light, and she went on to appear in Southland, Ringer, The Good Wife, NCIS, Flight of the Conchords, Medium, and Rizzoli & Isles. She served as a series regular on TNT's medical drama Monday Mornings, playing Dr. Michelle Robidaux, and took on a starring role as FBI agent Kim Fischer in The Mentalist from 2013 to 2014. In 2015, she was cast in the eleventh season of Supernatural as Amara, known as the Darkness, a role she continued through 2020. Beginning in 2019, Swallow took on the role of the Armorer in the Star Wars series The Mandalorian, portraying the leader of a traditionalist Mandalorian group. The character's face remains unseen throughout the series, as traditionalist Mandalorians do not remove their helmets in the presence of others. The Armorer received expanded prominence in the third season, which placed greater focus on the Mandalorian people. Swallow reprised the role in The Book of Boba Fett in 2022.

Swallow married actor Chad Kimball on August 26, 2018.