Emily Bergl


Anne Emily Bergl is an English-American actress. She is best known for her role as Rachel Lang in the supernatural horror film , Annie O'Donnell on the ABC television show Men in Trees, Beth Young on Desperate Housewives, Tammi Bryant on the TNT drama series Southland and Sammi Slott in Shameless. She also performs as a cabaret singer.

Early life

Bergl was born in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, to an Irish mother and an English architect father. She has one brother. Bergl’s family relocated to the United States when she was six, initially residing in Denver, Colorado. When she was ten, the family then relocated to Glenview, Illinois, where she spent the remainder of her upbringing. She attended Glenbrook South High School and Grinnell College, where she was the lead in several school productions. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and theatre. During her college years, she spent a semester studying with the National Theater Institute at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. She received additional acting training at HB Studio in New York City.
She is mother to one daughter.

Career

Acting

Bergl began acting in theater, appearing in a production of Romeo and Juliet opposite Neil Patrick Harris at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in 1998. Bergl's big break came with the lead role of Rachel Lang in the 1999 film, ', the sequel to the 1976 supernatural thriller Carrie. Much of her acting also takes place on television. Bergl has appeared in episodes of the TV shows Gilmore Girls, ', Medium, ', NYPD Blue, and '. She also appeared in the psychological thriller Chasing Sleep, opposite star Jeff Daniels. Bergl had a major role in the Steven Spielberg 2002 miniseries Taken.
Bergl had a significant co-starring role in the ABC series Men in Trees as Annie, an enthusiastic fan of the series' main character, relationship expert Marin Frist. Annie travels to every event Marin appears at, and ends up in Elmo, Alaska with Marin. Annie stays in Elmo, when she meets Patrick Bachelor, a local hotel desk clerk and radio DJ she knew through online chats about Marin's books.
Recently, Bergl played in Becky Shaw at Second Stage Theatre in New York in the beginning of 2009. As of the season's second episode Bergl played Paul Young's new wife, Beth, in the seventh season of Desperate Housewives.

Cabaret

Since 2010, Bergl has performed a cabaret show called Kidding on the Square, which had a run in the summer of 2010 in Los Angeles and New York City, then later in Chicago. In September 2011, with the show in New York, The New York Times wrote of her performance:
A later article elaborated on her cabaret acts.

Filmography

Film

Television

2020
Dirty John

Accolades

She was nominated in 2000 and 2003 for a Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for Best Performance by a Younger Actor/Actress for and for Best Actress in a Television Series for Taken, respectively.