Lili Taylor

Lili Anne Taylor was born on February 20, 1967, in Glencoe, Illinois, the fifth of six children raised by an artist and a hardware store operator. She graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois in 1985, then studied at The Theatre School at DePaul University before being cut from the acting program for a policy violation. She subsequently trained at the Piven Theatre Workshop.

Taylor entered film in 1988 with a supporting part in Mystic Pizza, followed the next year by Say Anything... and Born on the Fourth of July, both released in 1989. Through the early 1990s she built a reputation as a central figure in American independent cinema, taking starring roles in Bright Angel (1990), Dogfight (1991), Household Saints (1993), Short Cuts (1993), and The Addiction (1995). In Dogfight, directed by Nancy Savoca, she played a young woman taken to a cruel contest by a Marine under the pretense of a date. She also appeared in Arizona Dream, filmed in 1991 and released in 1993, playing the witty and romantic stepdaughter of Faye Dunaway's character in the Emir Kusturica-directed film. Robert Altman cast her in Short Cuts in 1993, where she shared scenes with Lily Tomlin. That same year, she reunited with Savoca for Household Saints.

In 1996, Taylor portrayed Valerie Solanas, who attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol, in Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol, for which she received a Special Recognition award from the Sundance Film Festival. The same year she appeared in Girls Town alongside Bruklin Harris and Aunjanue Ellis, and co-starred in Ransom. She worked with Harron again in 2006 on The Notorious Bettie Page. Taylor also appeared in mainstream productions including Rudy (1993), The Haunting (1999), High Fidelity (2000), Factotum (2005), Public Enemies (2009), The Conjuring (2013), and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), in which she played Dr. Mary Cooper. Additional film credits include To the Bone (2017) and Paper Spiders (2020). Taylor won the Best Actress award at the 2005 Copenhagen International Film Festival for her performance in Factotum.

Her work in independent film earned four Independent Spirit Award nominations. She won Best Supporting Female for Household Saints (1993) and received nominations for Best Female Lead for Bright Angel (1990) and The Addiction (1995), as well as a second Best Supporting Female nomination for Girls Town (1996). In 2006, she received the Excellence in Acting Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival.

On television, Taylor played Lisa Kimmel Fisher, primarily in the second and third seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under (2002–2005), earning an Emmy nomination for the role. She received a second Emmy nomination for her guest appearance as Marty Glenn in the X-Files episode "Mind's Eye" in 1998. Her portrayal of Anne Blaine on the ABC drama series American Crime (2015–2017) brought a third Emmy nomination, this time for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Taylor's Broadway career spans 1997 to 2017. She appeared on Broadway in Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters in 1997 and in Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room in 2017, and also participated in The 24 Hour Plays in 2004. In 2014, she starred in the off-Broadway play The Library, directed by Steven Soderbergh, alongside Chloë Grace Moretz.

Taylor married writer Nick Flynn in 2009. They have a daughter, Maeve, born around 2008. She sits on the boards of the American Birding Association and the National Audubon Society and is an activist for conservation issues related to birds. In 2025, she published a book of essays titled Turning to Birds, The Power and Beauty of Noticing. Taylor introduced Louise Post to Nina Gordon, who went on to found the alternative band Veruca Salt in the early 1990s.