Aisha Tyler

Aisha Nilaja Tyler (born September 18, 1970) is an American actress and talk show host. She is known for playing Andrea Marino in the first season of Ghost Whisperer, Dr. Tara Lewis in Criminal Minds, Mother Nature in the final two The Santa Clause films, and voicing Lana Kane in Archer. She also had recurring roles on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Talk Soup, and Friends. She co-hosted seasons two through seven of CBS's The Talk, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host. Since 2013, she has hosted Whose Line Is It Anyway?. She also hosted Ubisoft's E3 press conferences and has lent her voice to the video games Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, and Watch Dogs. Early life Tyler was born on September 18, 1970, in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Robin Gregory, a teacher, and James Tyler, a photographer. The family spent one year in Ethiopia and later spent time living in an ashram in Oakland, California. Her parents separated when she was ten years old, after which her father raised her. Her maternal great-grandfather was Thomas Montgomery Gregory, a dramatist and educator, and her great-great-grandfather was Howard University professor James Monroe Gregory. She pursued an early interest in comedy at McAteer High School in San Francisco, which had a special program called School of the Arts, now named Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. Tyler attended high school with Sam Rockwell and Margaret Cho. She had a crush on Rockwell and followed him into acting class one day, leading to her interest in improv and sketch.