Rachel Brosnahan

Rachel Elizabeth Brosnahan was born on July 12, 1990, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Carol and Earl Brosnahan, the latter of whom worked in children's publishing. Her mother is British and her father is of Irish-American descent. From the age of four, she was raised in Highland Park, Illinois, where she attended Wayne Thomas Elementary School and Northwood Junior High School before enrolling at Highland Park High School. During her school years she participated in musical theater, competed on the wrestling team for two years, and worked as a snowboarding instructor. At sixteen she studied with Carole Dibo, director of Wilmette's Actors Training Center, who later became her manager. Brosnahan went on to graduate from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2012 and also studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

Brosnahan's professional career began while she was still in high school, when she was cast as Lisa in the Michael Bay-produced horror film The Unborn (2009). Her first stage appearance came that same year in Up at Steppenwolf Theatre. During her college years she appeared in single episodes of television series including Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy, and In Treatment. She also appeared in two short films directed by Ari Aster, Basically (2013) and Munchausen (2014). Following graduation she secured recurring roles in the crime thriller The Blacklist (2014) and the medical drama Black Box (2014).

Brosnahan made her Broadway debut in 2013 with the Roundabout Theatre Company production of The Big Knife, a play by Clifford Odets. That same year she began portraying Rachel Posner in the Netflix political drama House of Cards alongside Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Initially engaged for only two episodes, her role was substantially expanded after showrunner Beau Willimon took notice of her work. The performance earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards. She subsequently appeared in the drama series Manhattan (2014–2015) and Woody Allen's Amazon comedy miniseries Crisis in Six Scenes (2016), the latter also featuring Elaine May and Miley Cyrus.

In 2016, Brosnahan played Desdemona in an off-Broadway production of Othello at New York Theatre Workshop, opposite David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig. Beginning in 2017, she took on the title role of Midge Maisel in the Amazon Prime Video period comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, playing a 1950s Jewish housewife who pursues a career in stand-up comedy after her marriage fails. The series ran through 2023 and the role brought Brosnahan extensive recognition, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2018, two consecutive Golden Globe Awards in 2018 and 2019, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Critics' Choice Television Awards. In 2019 she founded the production company Scrap Paper Pictures.

Brosnahan returned to Broadway in 2023 in the revival of Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, playing a wife in a turbulent marriage opposite Oscar Isaac. The production was directed by Anne Kauffman and transferred from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the James Earl Jones Theatre. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play as well as a Drama League Distinguished Performance Award nomination.

On film, Brosnahan appeared in The Courier (2020) alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, and starred in and produced I'm Your Woman (2020) with Arinzé Kene. She starred in the western Dead for a Dollar (2022), which premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. In 2025 she portrayed Lois Lane in the DC Universe superhero film Superman, directed by James Gunn, and appeared as the wife of a CIA analyst in the espionage thriller The Amateur, starring Rami Malek. It was also announced that she would star in and serve as executive producer on the Apple TV+ anthology crime drama series Presumed Innocent.

Brosnahan has been married to actor Jason Ralph; the two had wed privately before their relationship became public in 2019, when she acknowledged him during her acceptance speech at the 76th Golden Globe Awards. She is the niece of handbag designer Kate Spade, born Katherine Noel Brosnahan, who was married to Andy Spade, the older brother of actor and comedian David Spade.