Heather Matarazzo

Heather Matarazzo is an American actress born on November 10, 1982, in Oyster Bay, New York, where she was raised by her adoptive Italian-American family. Her biological mother was Irish-American and her biological father was from Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. Matarazzo began performing at age six, after taking over a microphone at a children's AIDS benefit led to her being connected with a talent manager she worked with for the next decade.

Matarazzo made her film debut at age twelve in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), playing adolescent social outcast Dawn Wiener. She received an Independent Spirit Award for that performance in 1997. Subsequent film roles included The Devil's Advocate (1997), All I Wanna Do (1998), 54 (1998), and Scream 3 (2000). In 2001, she appeared in The Princess Diaries as Lilly Moscovitz, a role she reprised in the 2004 sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Additional film credits include Sorority Boys (2002), Saved! (2004), Hostel: Part II (2007), Sisters (2015), and Scream (2022). Matarazzo has cited her performance in Our Guys: Outrage in Glen Ridge (1999), in which she played a mentally disabled girl who is raped by football players, as the work she is most proud of.

On television, Matarazzo portrayed Heather Wiseman on the CBS series Now and Again from 1999 to 2000 and held recurring roles on Roseanne (1997), Exes & Ohs (2006–2009), and The L Word (2007). She also appeared on Law & Order, Grey's Anatomy, and Strangers With Candy.

On stage, Matarazzo appeared on Broadway in the 2001–2002 revival of The Women. She later starred opposite Thaao Penghlis in the world premiere of Charles Evered's play Class at Cape May Stage in Cape May, New Jersey, in May and June 2010. In 2011, Matarazzo announced plans to make her directorial debut with a television series based on Diane Hanks's memoir Summer Camp: A Memoir.

Matarazzo came out as a lesbian in 2004 in an article in the New York Daily News and was subsequently profiled in the October 2004 issue of The Advocate. Her publicist announced her engagement to musician Caroline Murphy on July 31, 2008; the two later separated amicably in 2012. Matarazzo married comedian Heather Turman in 2018. She publicly endorsed and campaigned for Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.