Betty Gilpin
Betty Gilpin is an actor, born 1986.
Betty Gilpin spent years as the best thing in shows that were not about her: Dr. Carrie Roman on Nurse Jackie from 2013 to 2015, Nancy Leveau on Masters of Sex, Fiona Helbron on Elementary, Audrey on American Gods. The parts were supporting; the notices were not.
GLOW, which ran from 2017 to 2019, gave her Debbie Eagan and a genuinely difficult assignment: a soap actress the industry has already finished with, who discovers she likes hitting people. Gilpin plays the discovery as relief rather than empowerment, a harder and much better choice, and the show earned her three Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Film has been less useful to her. She leads The Hunt, a sharper satire than its reputation suggests, and she is the reason it works. Elsewhere she has been the wife, the girlfriend or the antagonist in The Tomorrow War, Stuber, Isn't It Romantic and Coffee & Kareem, none of which needed an actor of her range.
Television keeps handing her the odd material instead, and that is where she belongs. Mrs. Davis put her in the lead in 2023 as a nun at war with an artificial intelligence, a premise that should collapse and mostly does not, because she plays it with total conviction. American Primeval followed in 2025, and a guest turn in Widow's Bay in 2026 brought a fourth Emmy nomination.
Movies (14)
TV (16)
- Widow's Bay (2026)
- Elementary (2012)
- Masters of Sex (2013)
- The Terminal List: Dark Wolf (2025)
- Nurse Jackie (2009)
- American Gods (2017)
- GLOW (2017)
- American Primeval (2025)
- Roar (2022)
- Death by Lightning (2025)
- Gaslit (2022)
- Mrs. Davis (2023)
- The Unusuals (2009)
- Skull Island (2023)
- Three Women (2024)
- Hal & Harper (2025)
Where to start with Betty Gilpin
GLOW first, without hesitation. It is the best show she has been in and the only one that gives her a complete arc, and the wrestling is a far better vehicle for her than the prestige-drama parts she was getting before it.
Mrs. Davis is next if you enjoy being off balance: a lunatic premise held together by an actor refusing to treat it as a joke. The Hunt is the film, nasty, fast and much smarter about class than its reputation allows, and Gilpin is the reason its back half works.
Then work backwards. Nurse Jackie and Masters of Sex are the supporting years and worth it for other reasons anyway. American Primeval is the recent hard-edged one. Skip The Tomorrow War unless you want a big loud alien picture; she deserved more than the part offers.
The breakout television
GLOW gave her Debbie Eagan and three Emmy nominations, and Mrs. Davis is the show built entirely around what she does, which is playing composure stretched over something feral. The earlier parts are where she was learning it.
The films
The film work is mostly comedy and action, and The Hunt is the one that uses her physicality properly, a lead role in a satire that got attacked before anyone had actually seen it. The rest are supporting parts she elevates.
The recent prestige work
A run of limited series where the parts have got harder and much less comic. American Primeval is the bleakest thing she has done, and Gaslit gives her Mo Dean in a register almost nobody else could have found.