Lacey Chabert

Lacey Nicole Chabert (pronounced shə-BAIR) is an American actress born on September 30, 1982, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and raised in the nearby town of Purvis. Her father is Cajun from Louisiana. She has a younger brother, Tony, and an older sister, Chrissy. Her oldest sister, Wendy, died of a heart attack in November 2021. As a child, Chabert competed in beauty pageants, earning the title of "World's Baby Petite" in the World's Our Little Miss Scholarship Competition in 1985 and was also named Miss Jr. Mississippi.

Chabert began her performing career early, appearing in television commercials for Burger King, Triaminic Cough Syrup, Zest, and Secret Beauties dolls. Her Broadway credit came when she played young Cosette in Les Misérables in 1992–93. She also appeared on The Broadway Kids' first album, The Broadway Kids Sing Broadway, released in 1994, contributing solo performances of "The Girl I Mean to Be" from The Secret Garden and "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Misérables.

Her television career gained significant momentum when she was cast as Bianca Montgomery, the daughter of Erica Kane, on the daytime drama All My Children from 1992 to 1993. In 1994, she landed the recurring role of Claudia Salinger on the Fox drama Party of Five, a series centered on five siblings orphaned after their parents are killed by a drunk driver. The show ran from September 12, 1994, to May 3, 2000. For her work on the series, Chabert won The Hollywood Reporter's YoungStar Award for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Drama TV Series in both 1997 and 1998, and received three additional nominations for the award between 1999 and 2000.

Chabert made her feature film debut as Penny Robinson in Lost in Space in 1998. Subsequent film roles included Amanda Becker in the parody Not Another Teen Movie (2001), a supporting part in Daddy Day Care (2003), and the voice of Aleu in Balto 2: Wolf Quest (2002). Her most prominent film role came in 2004, when she co-starred as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls alongside Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and Amanda Seyfried. The four co-stars shared the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Team. That same year, Chabert played the title role in The Brooke Ellison Story, a television biopic produced and directed by Christopher Reeve about a quadriplegic woman who graduated from Harvard University. Additional film credits include Dirty Deeds (2005), the 2006 horror remake Black Christmas, and the animated film All I Want for Christmas Is You (2017), for which she voiced the character Penelope.

Voice acting has formed a substantial part of Chabert's career. She voiced Eliza Thornberry in the Nickelodeon animated series The Wild Thornberrys from 1998 to 2004, reprising the role in The Wild Thornberrys Movie and Rugrats Go Wild. In 1999, she provided the uncredited voice of Meg Griffin during the first season of Family Guy, a role later taken over by Mila Kunis. Further voice credits include Princess Elise in the English dub of the video game Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Gwen Stacy in The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series, Mako in Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011), and the superhero Zatanna Zatara in DC Comics-related media.

From 2013 to 2014, Chabert had a recurring role as Dr. Amy Shaw on the ABC Family sitcom Baby Daddy. She has appeared in more than 40 Hallmark Channel films, including A Christmas Melody (2015), which debuted to 3.95 million viewers on December 19, 2015, and starred alongside Mariah Carey, Brennan Elliott, Kathy Najimy, and Fina Strazza. Beginning in 2019, she starred in the Crossword Mysteries series on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. In 2021, she portrayed marketing executive Josie Wilder in the Hallmark romantic drama Sweet Carolina, on which she also served as executive producer and contributed to the film's story alongside Jonathan Prince and Michael Reisz. In February 2022, Chabert signed an exclusive multi-film deal with Crown Media Family Networks, Hallmark Channel's parent company. She co-starred with Kevin McGarry in The Wedding Veil series and starred in the 2025 Hallmark film She's Making a List as a character named Isabel. In 2026, she starred in the Hallmark film Lost in Paradise as Sophia, a fashion company founder stranded on an island with a struggling chef played by Ian Harding following a plane crash.

Outside of Hallmark, Chabert starred in the Netflix holiday film Hot Frosty, released on November 13, 2024, playing a widow who brings a snowman to life. The film reached number one on Netflix in its first week of release. In November 2023, she appeared alongside original Mean Girls co-stars Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried, Rajiv Surendra, and Daniel Franzese in a Mean Girls-themed Black Friday commercial for Walmart. A second commercial centered entirely on her character Gretchen Wieners. On September 10, 2024, her unscripted Hallmark project Celebrations with Lacey Chabert premiered on Hallmark+, with Chabert also credited as executive producer.

In September 2022, Chabert launched an apparel line called the Lacey Chabert Collection through the home shopping network HSN. The line includes jackets, jogger pants, leggings, socks, cardigans, and "Mommy & Me" dresses, with prices ranging from $15.00 to $80.00. In 2016, she wrote a blog series for People magazine's website documenting her pregnancy, including discovering she was expecting, learning she was having a girl, and managing her baby bump on film sets.