[2] Her desire to be an actress was ignited when at age 9 she watched her sister act in The Diary of Anne Frank.
When she was in the seventh grade she moved with her family to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after her father bought a McDonald's franchise there.
[3] She graduated from Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg,[4] then attended Barat College for Women in Lake Forest, Illinois, and acted there.
In 2008, she appeared in the John Patrick Shanley-directed sexual abuse drama Doubt, starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
She is also a noted stage actress and made her Broadway debut opposite Faye Dunaway in William Alfred's The Curse of an Aching Heart[1] and appeared at The Apollo and the Chicago Shakespeare Festival.