Molly Ephraim

Molly Ephraim is an American actress born on May 22, 1986, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who has built a career spanning Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theater, film, and television. She grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, attending Central Bucks East High School before enrolling at Princeton University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies in 2008. During her time at Princeton, Ephraim was a member of the Triangle Club and participated in productions with Princeton University Players and Theatre Intime, including work as a choreographer. Earlier in her youth, she performed at the Bucks County Playhouse and in professional productions at both the Prince Music Theater and the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia.

Ephraim made her Broadway debut in 2002 as Little Red Riding Hood in the revival of Into the Woods, a performance that earned her a Drama League Award nomination. She returned to Broadway in 2004, playing Bielke in a revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Her regional and Off-Broadway work includes the role of Olive in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Barrington Stage Company in 2008, in a remounting directed by Jeremy Dobrish, with the production also playing at the North Shore Music Theatre. That same year she appeared Off-Broadway as Rachel Stein in End Days at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. In 2010, she portrayed Anne Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank at the Westport Country Playhouse, and in 2015 she played Daphna Feygenbaum in Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

On television, Ephraim is best known for playing Mandy Baxter, the daughter of Tim Allen's character Mike Baxter, on the ABC sitcom Last Man Standing, which premiered on October 11, 2011. She remained with the series through its sixth season before it was canceled in March 2017. When Fox revived the show in May 2018, Ephraim chose not to return, and the role was recast with Molly McCook. She has also held recurring roles on Brockmire, Halt and Catch Fire, and Casual, all in 2017 and 2018, and appeared on HBO's Perry Mason in 2020 as Hazel Prystock, Della Street's lover. Additional television credits include Royal Pains, Law and Order, and the Hulu series The Act, in which she played Gypsy Rose Blanchard's attorney. She later played Maybelle Fox on the Amazon series A League of Their Own.

Ephraim's film credits include Wendy Greenhut in College Road Trip (2008), Ali Rey in Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) and its spin-off Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), and Irene Kelly in the 2018 biographical political drama The Front Runner, which also featured her Last Man Standing co-star Kaitlyn Dever. Ephraim married her husband Evan in September 2021, and the couple welcomed their daughter Zia on December 1, 2021.