Samantha Mathis (born May 12, 1970)[1] is an American actress and trade union leader who served as the Vice President, Actors/Performers of SAG-AFTRA from 2015 to 2019.

[a] The daughter of actress Bibi Besch, Mathis made her film debut in Pump Up the Volume (1990), and later co-starred or appeared in such films as FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Super Mario Bros. (1993), The Thing Called Love (1993), Little Women (1994), The American President (1995), Jack and Sarah (1995), Broken Arrow (1996), American Psycho (2000), The Punisher (2004), and Atlas Shrugged: Part II (2012).

She has also had recurring roles on The Strain as New York City Councilwoman Justine Feraldo, and on Billions as Taylor Mason Capital COO Sara Hammon.

Her first starring role in a feature film was that of Nora in Pump Up the Volume (1990), opposite Christian Slater, whom she briefly dated at the time.

[3][6] Mathis dyed her natural blonde hair black for the role in an effort to change her image from sweet and innocent to strong-willed.

[9] Super Mario Bros. (1993), in which she played Princess Daisy from the popular Nintendo video game, was a box-office bomb but gained a cult following since its release.

[16] In 2014, she joined the cast of the FX horror drama series The Strain as Justine Feraldo, a New York City councilwoman for Staten Island.

[11] She was with Phoenix on October 31, 1993, the night he died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital of a drug overdose after collapsing outside The Viper Room in West Hollywood, California.

[21] Mathis took a role in the film Jack and Sarah (1995), which was shot in London, to get out of the country after Phoenix's death because of the excessive press coverage.