Gus Birney

Augusta Marsh Birney, known professionally as Gus Birney, was born on July 27, 1999, and is an American actress working in theater, television, and film. She is the daughter of actors Reed Birney and Constance Shulman.

Birney's professional stage career began in 2016 when she played Rosa in a production of Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, appearing alongside Marisa Tomei, Christopher Abbott, and Lindsay Mendez. Her screen work began with a role in the science fiction-horror series The Mist in 2017, followed by appearances in the Netflix superhero series Jessica Jones and the Netflix comedy series Insatiable, both in 2019. That same year she began portraying Jane Humphreys in the Apple TV+ period series Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld, a role she continued through 2021. Her film credits include the romantic comedy Here and Now (2018) starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Charlie Kaufman's Netflix psychological drama I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020), and the Hulu coming-of-age comedy Plan B (2021). From 2022 to 2023, Birney appeared in the Apple TV+ satirical horror-comedy series Shining Vale, earning a Saturn Award for Best Young Actor in a Television Series nomination for her work on the show.

Her Broadway debut came through the 2023 revival of Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. The production first ran off-Broadway from February to March 2023 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where Birney played Gloria Parodus, a young prostitute and the sister of the character Iris, portrayed by Rachel Brosnahan, with Oscar Isaac also starring. The production subsequently transferred to Broadway, with Birney continuing in the role. The revival received a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play, ultimately losing to the revival of Topdog/Underdog.

In 2024, Birney returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for an adaptation of Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek's Our Class, in which she portrayed Dora, a young Jewish mother and one of ten Polish students depicted in the period leading up to a 1941 pogrom in the village of Jedwabne.