Merritt Wever

Born and raised in Manhattan, Merritt Wever focused on acting at a young age. Even before she studied acting at Sarah Lawrence College, Wever worked to break into acting, first appearing at the age of 14 in the TV movie "Blue River" (1995). Her first bigger role was in the Kirsten Dunst-starring "All I Wanna Do" (1998). As she studied acting in New York City, she focused more on theater early on, though she still appeared in "Signs" (2002) and "The Wire" (HBO 2002-2008) in the early 2000s.

As she reached her late 20s, she started appearing in more major films, including "Michael Clayton" (2007), "Into the Wild" (2007), and "Tiny Furniture" (2010). Her TV career also started to blossom around the same time, first with a role on the short-lived "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (NBC 2006-2007) and then with her Emmy-winning turn on the dark comedy "Nurse Jackie" (Showtime 2009-2015) as Zoey Barkow. As "Nurse Jackie" started to wrap up, Wever branched out to other shows, with brief stints on "New Girl" (Fox 2011-2018) and "The Walking Dead" (AMC 2010- ). A small part in the Best Picture-winning "Birdman" (2014) helped Wever gain more recognition outside of television. Still, she returned to her Emmy-winning ways with her role on the miniseries "Godless" (Netflix 2017). Following that, Wever co-starred with Steve Carell in the Robert Zemeckis-directed "Welcome to Marwen" (2018).