Grace Gummer

Daughter of acclaimed actress Meryl Streep, Grace Gummer proven herself to be far removed from the character she played in TeenNick's "Gigantic" (2010-11), an in-the-spotlight daughter of a famous acting couple. With meaty theater roles under her belt, including a run in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," and a series of low-key parts in film and television series, Gummer paid her dues like any unknown rather than stepping into starring roles and giant productions on the strength of her mother's name.

The third of Streep's four children with her husband Don Gummer, a sculptor, Gummer's original ambitions did not originally include acting. Growing up in such a talented and creative family (in addition to her parents, her sister Mamie was also an actress and her brother Henry was an actor and musician), it could not have been easy to find her own way. As a child, she appeared in "The House of the Spirits" (1993) billed as Jane Gray (Gummer's middle name is Jane), playing the child Clara del Valle Trueba, who was portrayed as an adult by Streep.

Aside from this foray into the film world, however, Gummer grew up with her siblings far from the glitz of Hollywood in a small Connecticut town. Despite dabbling in acting and costume design as a student at Vassar College, she had no particular ambition to return to the screen. The swim team captain in college, she once dreamed of Olympic gold in her chosen sport, and after graduating with a major in art history and Italian, headed to Rome with aspirations to become a clothing designer.

But in 2008, when the director of the play "The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents" asked her if she was interested in designing costumes for his production, Gummer flew back home to the United States and found that she wanted to be something other than a behind-the-scenes crew member, winning a part after several auditions. From good notices in the play, Gummer was offered her next professional job, a role in the crime film "Meskada" (2010), and she has continued to work steadily in theater, film and television.

She landed a small part in the Tom Hanks-directed "Larry Crowne" (2011), which starred Julia Roberts, and made appearances in television shows including a starring role on the web series "Paloma" (2013), written and directed by Julia Stiles, and a guest appearance on the Aaron Sorkin HBO drama "The Newsroom" (2012-14), in which she played the daughter of Mitt Romney. Gummer's breakout came on the science fiction drama "Extant" (CBS 2014-15), followed by other strong supporting roles on "American Horror Story: Freak Show" (FX 2014-15) and dystopian thriller "Mr. Robot" (USA 2015- ).

During this period she also co-starred in the romantic comedy-drama "Learning To Drive" (2015) opposite Patricia Clarkson and appeared in streaming drama "Good Girls Revolt" (Amazon 2016) as young reporter Nora Ephron.