Piper Perabo
Piper Lisa Perabo (/ˈpɛrəboʊ/ ⓘ PERR-ə-boh; born October 31, 1976) is an American actress. Following her breakthrough in the comedy-drama film Coyote Ugly (2000),[1] she starred in Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), its sequel Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), The Prestige (2006), Angel Has Fallen (2019), and as CIA agent Annie Walker in the USA Network spy drama series Covert Affairs (2010–2014), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama.[2]
Piper Perabo
Actress
1997–present
Early life[edit]
Perabo is the daughter of Mary Charlotte (née Ulland), a physical therapist, and George William Perabo, a lecturer in poetry at Ocean County College.[3] She is of English, German, and Irish (father) and Norwegian (mother) descent; her surname is sometimes mistakenly described as Portuguese.[4] She grew up in Toms River, New Jersey.
Perabo's parents named her after actress Piper Laurie.[3] She is the eldest of three children with two brothers, Noah and Adam. She graduated from Toms River High School North in 1994,[5] and earned a bachelor's degree in theater from Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University in 1998.[6] In 1996, she attended the Trinity/La MaMa Performing Arts Program.[7] She also studied Latin, physics, and poetry in her final year.[8][9][10]
Perabo was first noticed a year before she graduated from college. She was in New York City, visiting her then-boyfriend, and accompanied him to an audition. Casting director Denise Fitzgerald spotted her and asked her to read for a part. She was not cast, but when Fitzgerald found out that she did not have any representation, she made phone calls on Perabo's behalf and found her an agent.[11][12]
Career[edit]
1997–2007: Beginning and breakthrough[edit]
After graduating, Perabo moved to New York, where she worked as a waitress.[13][14] She also studied acting at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and had roles in various plays.[11] She was cast in her first feature film just a month after moving to the city, Marc Levin's comedy Whiteboyz.[14] In 2000, she was cast in the romantic musical comedy-drama film Coyote Ugly as Violet "Jersey" Sanford, for which she won an MTV Movie Award for Best Music Moment for "One Way or Another".[15][16] Despite the film's mixed response from critics, it was a box office success, grossing over $113 million worldwide.[1] She also appeared in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle as FBI agent Karen Sympathy.[17]
After the success of Coyote Ugly, Perabo decided to focus on independent films.[18] In 2001, she starred in an independent Canadian drama called Lost and Delirious, playing a boarding school student who falls in love with a female classmate (played by Jessica Paré). The film was met with mixed reviews, but the performances of Perabo, Paré and co-star Mischa Barton were widely praised.[19] Perabo's performance in particular received critical acclaim; Loren King of the Chicago Tribune called it her "breakout performance".[20] Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called her "an actress of glittering ferocity" and her performance "a geyser of emotion".[21] Jim Lane of the Sacramento News & Review said that "Perabo is a revelation, wild and fiery — it's a breakthrough performance, astonishing in its fervency"[22] and Roger Ebert praised her performance for its sincerity and "wonderful abandon and conviction".[23]
The next year she starred as a French exchange student in the independent comedy Slap Her... She's French, which was shelved in North America for two years, then released under the new title She Gets What She Wants. The film was released under its original title in Europe. She had a role as the eldest Baker child, Nora, in Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), a role she reprised in the film's 2005 sequel. Her other films include The I Inside (2003), Perfect Opposites (2004), George and the Dragon (2004), The Cave (2005), Imagine Me & You (2005), Edison (2005), and The Prestige (2006).
Personal life[edit]
In 2013, Perabo became engaged to director and writer Stephen Kay; they married on July 26, 2014, in New York City.[38] Perabo is stepmother to Kay's daughter.[39]
Perabo has been close friends with actress Lena Headey since they starred together in the 2005 films The Cave and Imagine Me & You.[40] She speaks fluent French,[18] advocates for LGBT rights and women's political leadership, and serves on the advisory board of VoteRunLead.[41] She is part owner of Employees Only, a Prohibition-themed bar in the West Village, that opened in 2005, and Jack's Wife Freda, a SoHo restaurant that opened in 2012.[42][43]
Political activism[edit]
Perabo was arrested for protesting Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing.[44]
She was also arrested in November 2019 while attending one of Jane Fonda's weekly climate change protests.[45]
Perabo endorsed Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries[46] and regularly uses her Twitter and Instagram accounts to advocate for voter registration and voter education. She has encouraged followers to seek out VoteRiders to learn more about Voter ID requirements.[47][48]
Perabo is an advisory board member for The Hometown Project, a non-profit organisation that works to help elect candidates in local races.[49]