Zoe Lister-Jones

Zoe Lister-Jones is an American actress, writer, director, and producer born on September 1, 1982, in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother, Ardele Lister, is a Canadian-born video artist based in New York, and her father, Bill Jones, is an American photographer and media artist. Her mother was raised in a Jewish family, and her father converted to Judaism; the family attended a local Conservative egalitarian synagogue every Saturday, and her mother maintained a kosher home. Lister-Jones graduated from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn in 2000, then earned a degree with honors from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

Lister-Jones appeared on Broadway between 2006 and 2011, with credits including Seminar and The Little Dog Laughed. Her New York theater work also extended off Broadway, where her credits include The New Group's The Accomplices. In 2004, she wrote and performed the one-woman, ten-character show Co-dependence is a Four Letter Word at Performance Space 122 in New York City.

Her screen career began with appearances across all four Law & Order franchise series, as well as roles in the films State of Play, Salt, The Other Guys, Day Zero, Armless, Arranged, and Palladio, the last of which was directed by her father and based on a Jonathan Dee novel. In 2009, she co-starred, co-produced, and co-wrote the independent feature Breaking Upwards alongside Daryl Wein and Peter Duchan. Shot in New York on a budget of $15,000, the film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was highlighted in a New York Times article as an example of sweat equity in independent filmmaking. Lister-Jones also wrote lyrics and performed tracks on the film's soundtrack, with music arranged by Kyle Forester. She starred alongside Josh Hartnett and Michael Imperioli in Brady Kiernan's Stuck Between Stations, which premiered in the Viewpoints section of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. Her second co-writing collaboration with Wein, Lola Versus, starred Greta Gerwig and was distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures following its premiere at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. A third collaboration with Wein, Consumed, a political thriller centered on genetically modified organisms, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 15, 2015, with a cast that included Kunal Nayyar, Taylor Kinney, Victor Garber, Danny Glover, and Anthony Edwards.

On television, Lister-Jones played Kim on Adult Swim's Delocated from 2009 to 2010, Lily on the NBC sitcom Whitney from 2011 to 2013, and Councilwoman Fawn Moscato on New Girl in 2015. From 2015 to 2019, she co-starred as Jen Collins Short on the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces. Additional television credits include HBO's Bored to Death, Friends with Better Lives, and the HBO film Confirmation, in which she played Carolyn Hart.

Lister-Jones made her feature directorial debut with the 2017 comedy-drama Band Aid, which she also wrote and starred in alongside Adam Pally, Fred Armisen, Hannah Simone, and Colin Hanks, among others. The film's songs featured lyrics by Lister-Jones and music composed by Kyle Forester. In 2020, she wrote and directed The Craft: Legacy for Columbia Pictures and Blumhouse, a sequel to the 1996 film The Craft. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she co-wrote and co-directed the comedy-drama How It Ends with Daryl Wein, released in 2021.

In 2023, Lister-Jones produced, wrote, directed, and starred in the comedy series Slip for The Roku Channel, with Dakota Johnson executive producing under her TeaTime Pictures banner. On December 5, 2023, Slip received two nominations for the 39th Independent Spirit Awards: Best New Scripted Series and Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series. Lister-Jones also co-stars in Pavements, a 2024 experimental musical biopic concert film directed by Alex Ross Perry about the indie band Pavement, which premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2024. In January 2025, she was cast in Peacock's The Miniature Wife alongside Matthew Macfadyen, Elizabeth Banks, Sofia Rosinsky, O-T Fagbenle, Sian Clifford, and Ronny Chieng.

In addition to her acting and filmmaking work, Lister-Jones released a solo CD titled Skip the Kiss, with music arranged by Kyle Forester. She married Daryl Wein in 2013; in 2021, she announced that they had separated after a 17-year relationship. Also in 2021, she publicly accused actor Chris Noth of sexually harassing her during the filming of a 2005 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In February 2024, at the 39th Spirit Awards, Lister-Jones disclosed that she identifies as queer and is dating filmmaker Sammi Cohen.