Gretchen Mol

Gretchen Mol (born November 8, 1972) is an American actress and former model. She is best known for her role as Gillian Darmody on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014). She also appeared in films such as The Funeral (1996), Donnie Brasco (1997), Celebrity (1998), Rounders (1998), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), and Manchester by the Sea (2016). For her portrayal of the title character in The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), she was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. Early life Mol was born on November 8, 1972, in Deep River, Connecticut, where her mother, Janet (née Morgan), is an artist and teacher, and her father is a teacher at RHAM High School. She went to high school with Broadway actor Peter Lockyer, with whom she performed in school musicals and plays. Her brother, Jim Mol, is a director and editor in the film industry. Mol attended The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and graduated from the William Esper Studio. She took a job for a while as an usher at Angelika Film Center in New York. She had followed her brother there when he was in NYU film school. Stage Mol's acting career began in summer stock theatre in Vermont where she played a variety of roles, including Godspell and 110 in the Shade. She played Jenny in Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things on stage in both London and New York in 2001, in a role she reprised in the film version, released in 2003. The New York Times critic Ben Brantley, in his review of the play (which he disliked), wrote, "[Mol] gives by far the most persuasive performance as the unworldly Jenny, and you wind up feeling for her disproportionately, only because she seems to be entirely there, in the present tense". In 2004, Mol spent a year singing and dancing as Roxie Hart in the Broadway production of Chicago. In 2014–2015, Mol played the role of Emily in the Broadway debut of Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer-Prize-winning play, Disgraced.