The funniest actresses

by sidset | created - 06 Jul 2014 | updated - 26 Oct 2016 | Public

1. Issa Rae

Producer | Insecure

Jo-Issa Rae Diop credited professionally as Issa Rae, is an American actress, writer, producer, and comedian. Rae first garnered attention for her work on the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl. Since 2011, Rae has continued to develop her YouTube channel, which features various short films, web...

2. Kate McKinnon

Actress | Ghostbusters

Kathryn McKinnon Berthold (born January 6, 1984), known professionally as Kate McKinnon, is an American actress and comedienne, who is best known as a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live and The Big Gay Sketch Show, and for playing the role of Dr. Jillian Holtzmann in the 2016 Ghostbusters ...

3. Melissa McCarthy

Actress | The Heat

Melissa McCarthy was born in Plainfield, Illinois, to Sandra and Michael McCarthy, and was raised on her family's corn and soybean farm. She began her performing career as a stand-up comedian in New York where she appeared at the famous clubs, Stand Up New York and The Improv. She worked on her ...

4. Lena Dunham

Writer | Tiny Furniture

New Yorker Lena Dunham is the daughter of a painter, Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons, a designer and photographer. Dunham was educated at Oberlin College, Ohio, graduating with a creative writing degree. It was while at Oberlin that she began writing shorts and feature films. In 2009, Dunham ...

5. Tina Fey

Actress | Date Night

Elizabeth Stamatina Fey was born in 1970 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia, to Xenobia "Jeanne" (Xenakes), a brokerage employee, and Donald Henry Fey, who wrote grant proposals for universities. Her mother is Greek, born in Piraeus, while her father had German, Northern Irish,...

6. Rebel Wilson

Actress | Senior Year

Rebel Wilson was born in Sydney, Australia, to a family of dog handlers and showers. She trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People and at Second City in the US. After a successful stage and television career in Australia, this writer/actress/producer now focuses on feature film projects in...

7. Amy Schumer

Writer | Trainwreck

Amy Beth Schumer is an American comedian, writer and actress from Manhattan who is known for Trainwreck, Last Comic Standing, Snatched, Expecting Amy, Price Check, I Feel Pretty, The Humans and Inside Amy Schumer. She is married to chef Chris Fischer and had a son. Slated to appear as the iconic ...

8. Kristen Wiig

Actress | Bridesmaids

Kristen Carroll Wiig was born on August 22, 1973 in Canandaigua, New York, to Laurie J. (Johnston), an artist, and Jon J. Wiig, a lake marina manager. She is of Norwegian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, English, and Scottish descent. The family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, before ...

9. Elizabeth Banks

Actress | The Hunger Games

Elizabeth Banks was born Elizabeth Mitchell in Pittsfield, a small city in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts near the New York border, on February 10, 1974. She is the daughter of Anne Marie (Wallace), who worked in a bank, and Mark Phineas Mitchell, a factory worker. Elizabeth describes ...

10. Mindy Kaling

Actress | The Office

Vera Mindy Chokalingam is an Indian-American actress, comedienne, producer, writer and director from Cambridge, Massachusetts known for playing Kelly Kapoor from The Office, Disgust from Inside Out and creating The Mindy Project. She also acted in Wreck-It Ralph, Despicable Me, The 40-Year-Old ...

11. Leslie Mann

Actress | Knocked Up

Leslie Jean Mann was born in San Francisco, California. She was raised in Newport Beach, California by her mother, Janet Ann Ayres. At the age of seventeen, she launched her career, appearing in various TV commercials.

Her screen break came when she was cast as Nurse Mary in the short-lived Birdland...

12. Carrie Preston

Actress | Claws

Carrie Preston is reprising her Emmy Award-winning role as the astute but unconventional attorney Elsbeth Tascioni in the new CBS drama, Elsbeth (2024) (February 29, 2024). The beloved character was first introduced in the acclaimed series The Good Wife (2009) on the network and appeared in The ...

13. Jennifer Saunders

Actress | Absolutely Fabulous

Jennifer Saunders was born July 6, 1958 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, to Jane, a biology teacher, and Robert Thomas Saunders, an RAF pilot. She attended Central School of Speech and Drama where she met her comedy partner Dawn French. Like many of the early 80s groundbreaking "alternative" comedians ...

14. Sandra Bullock

Producer | The Proposal

Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road ...

15. Annette Bening

Actress | American Beauty

Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, ...

16. Joanna Lumley

Actress | Absolutely Fabulous

Joanna Lumley was born on 1 May, 1946 in Kashmir, India, to British parents, Thya Beatrice Rose (Weir) and James Rutherford Lumley. Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles, and she spent most of her early childhood in the Far East where her father was posted.

An aspiring actress, she first came ...

17. Lily Tomlin

Actress | Nashville

Lily Tomlin was born September 1, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, to Lillie Mae (Ford) and Guy Tomlin, who moved to Michigan from Paducah, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Her mother was a nurse's aide and her father was a factory worker. She graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1957, and ...

18. Bodil Jørgensen

Actress | Idioterne

Bodil Jørgensen was born on March 3, 1961 in Vejle, Denmark. She is an actress, known for The Idiots (1998), Nothing's All Bad (2010) and Klinkevals (1999). She has been married to Morten Søborg since November 18, 2005. They have one child. She was previously married to Henrik Sartou.

19. Kirsten Lehfeldt

Actress | Flamberede hjerter

Kirsten Lehfeldt was born on December 19, 1952 in Skanderborg, Denmark. She is an actress and writer, known for Burning Hearts (1986), Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) and Jul i den gamle trædemølle (1990).

20. Søs Egelind

Actress | Lærkevej

Søs Egelind was born on November 13, 1958 in Denmark. She is an actress and writer, known for Lærkevej (2009), Angels in Fast Motion (2005) and Jul i den gamle trædemølle (1990). She is married to Björn Blixt. They have two children.

21. Amy Poehler

Actress | Inside Out

Amy Meredith Poehler was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to high school teachers Eileen Frances (Milmore) and William Grinstead Poehler. Her brother is comedian Greg Poehler. She is of Irish (from her mother) and English, Irish, German, and Portuguese (from her father) descent. Amy was first ...

22. Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Actress | Seinfeld

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was born on January 13, 1961, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, to Judith (LeFever), a special needs tutor and author, and Gérard Louis-Dreyfus, a billionaire businessman. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she spent her childhood in Washington, D.C., and New ...



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