Zoe Perry

Zoe Perry is an American actress born on September 26, 1983, in Chicago, to actors Laurie Metcalf and Jeff Perry, who divorced when she was three years old. Her earliest television appearances came as Jackie Harris in flashback sequences on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, the character her mother portrayed on the series. Despite her family background in acting, her parents discouraged her from pursuing the profession until adulthood. Perry described herself as too shy to perform in high school, and it was only after transferring from Boston University to Northwestern University that she began acting, initially as a means of building friendships.

Following her graduation, Perry relocated to New York in pursuit of television work, securing minor roles on series including Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Homesickness eventually drew her back to California, where she transitioned into theater. Her film work includes a debut appearance in Deception (2008) and a supporting role in the independent drama The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008).

Perry made her Broadway appearance in 2013 in The Other Place, performing alongside her mother. Two years later, she appeared with her father and Kevin McKidd in Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Anna Christie at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in West Los Angeles.

Her television profile grew through a nine-episode arc as Jane on the ABC thriller The Family in 2016, followed by a recurring role as Samantha Ruland on the ABC political thriller Scandal in 2017, a series in which her father also starred. That same year, Perry was cast as Mary Cooper on the CBS sitcom Young Sheldon, a spin-off of The Big Bang Theory. The role represented a younger version of the character her mother had played across 14 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, though Perry secured the part through a standard audition. She played Mary Cooper through the series' conclusion in 2024, earning a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2019. She subsequently reprised the role on the spin-off series Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, which premiered on CBS on October 17, 2024.