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Deborah Ann Woll
American actress (born 1985) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Deborah Ann Woll (born February 7, 1985) is an American actress. She played Jessica Hamby in the HBO drama series True Blood (2008–2014), which earned her a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She portrayed Karen Page in four television series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Daredevil (2015–2018) and Daredevil: Born Again (2025). Her film roles include Mother's Day (2010), Seven Days in Utopia (2011), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (2011), Catch .44 (2011), Ruby Sparks (2012), Meet Me in Montenegro (2014), The Automatic Hate (2015), Escape Room (2019) and its sequel Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021), and Queen of the Ring (2024).
In 2022, she provided the voice and motion capture of Faye in the video game God of War Ragnarök. She appeared in tabletop gaming web series including appearances as the Dungeon Master for multiple actual play series.
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Early life
Woll was born on February 7, 1985 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. Her father is an architect,[1] and her mother, Cathy Woll, is a teacher at the Berkeley Carroll School.[2][3] She is of Irish and German descent.[4][5] Woll attended the Packer Collegiate Institute,[6] the USC School of Theatre—where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2007[7]—and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.[8]
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Career
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Acting
Woll began her career with guest starring roles in several television series, including Life (2007), ER (2008), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008), My Name Is Earl (2008), and The Mentalist (2008), and had a supporting role in the action-adventure television film Aces 'N' Eights (2008).
In 2008, Woll landed her breakout role as Bill Compton's vampire progeny, Jessica Hamby, in the HBO fantasy drama series True Blood. She originally joined as a recurring character in the first season, but was promoted to a regular cast member for the second season onwards.[9] In 2009, she and her True Blood co-stars won the Satellite Award for Best Cast – Television Series at the 14th annual ceremony. At the 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards which took place the year following, she and her co-stars were nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Woll maintained the role of Jessica until the series' ending in 2014.[10]
In 2009, she made a guest appearance in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portraying a young woman who is found alive after being reported missing by her boyfriend.[11] In 2010, Woll made her feature film debut in the psychological horror Mother's Day.[12] In 2011, she starred in the supernatural thriller Little Murder,[13][14] the sports drama Seven Days in Utopia,[15] the action film Catch .44,[16] and the comedy-drama Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You.[17]
In 2012, Woll made a brief appearance in the romantic comedy-drama film Ruby Sparks. The year following, she performed at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in the play Parfumerie.[18][19] That same year, she joined the cast of the drama film The Automatic Hate.[20] In 2015, she starred in the independent romantic drama film Forever.[21]
She has portrayed Karen Page in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,[22][23] specifically as the female lead in Daredevil (2015–2018) and as a recurring actor in The Punisher (2017–2019) and The Defenders (2017).[24][25] Daredevil earned her a nomination for a Saturn Award. In 2018, Woll starred in the comedy film Silver Lake.[26] She also appeared in the action thriller film Escape Room in 2019, a role she reprised in its sequel Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021).[27] The former was a major commercial success,[28] surpassing initial expectations and debuting with $18.2 million,[29] and finishing with $155.7 million.[30]
Woll provided the voice of Faye in the video game God of War: Ragnarok in 2022. This was also Woll's first role where she performed the motion capture for a character.[31][32] In 2022, she performed as Katherine in director Shana Cooper's stage production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Old Globe in San Diego.[33][34] In 2023, she played Harper in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches staged by Hungarian director Janos Szasz at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage.[35]
Following the creative overhaul of Daredevil: Born Again (2025–present), Woll and Daredevil co-star Elden Henson reprised their roles as Karen and Foggy Nelson.[36][37][38] Entertainment Weekly reported that Woll will return in show's second season.[39]
Tabletop gaming
Woll is an enthusiastic Dungeons & Dragons player[40] and has been interviewed by D&D Beyond and Dragon Talk.[41][42] She has appeared in several Dungeons & Dragons charity specials, as both a player and a Dungeon Master, produced by Lost Odyssey Events.[43][44][45][46]
Woll starred in the second season of Force Grey: Lost City of Omu (2017), a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) web series which focused on the Tomb of Annihilation storyline,[47][48][49] and appeared as a guest player in Critical Role's second campaign.[41][50] Greg Tito, in the book Welcome to Dragon Talk (2022), noted that Woll for a long time was "reluctant to do anything publicly with" Dungeons & Dragons, however, "Force Grey cracked the protective shell she had separating the game from her acting career, and she fully embraced her skills as a storyteller and a Dungeon Master".[51] In 2019, she was the Dungeon Master of the Geek & Sundry show Relics and Rarities, which used a modified version of D&D.[52][53][54] Tito called the show "really magical" and thought it created "something special" with "a brilliant execution blending imagination and TV production".[51] In May 2019, Woll stated that Relics and Rarities had not yet been picked up for a second season and said, "I can say I have written a second season, or at least I’ve outlined it. It's ready to be fleshed out. Whether or not we get picked up, [...][the cast] will be coming over to my house and playing it, cameras or not".[54]
Since 2019[update], she has been a regular guest in seasons 7 through 11 of the web show GameNight! by BoardGameGeek; in each episode, the cast introduces and plays a new board game.[55][56] In 2022, it was announced that Woll would be the Dungeon Master for the ongoing D&D actual play show Children of Éarte. It premiered in March 2022 on the Demiplane Twitch channel.[57][58] Woll was nominated for the "Best Game Master (Actual Play Video)" award at the 2023 New Jersey Web Festival for her work on Children of Éarte; the show itself was also nominated for "Best Overlay Design (Actual Play Video)" and "Outstanding Actual Play (Video)".[59] In 2023, Woll was the author of the D&D adventure module Heroes' Feast: Saving the Children's Menu released digitally on D&D Beyond.[60] She also appeared as a guest player in the show Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! on the Dungeons & Dragons Adventures FAST channel which premiered in November 2023.[61] Woll was then a consultant on the Dungeon Master's Guide (2024) for the revised 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.[62]
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Personal life
Woll began dating E. J. Scott in December 2007. They married in December 2018.[63] Scott has choroideremia, a condition that ultimately results in blindness, and Woll uses her platform to help raise awareness of the disease.[64] She has said that Scott's attitude towards his disability has inspired courage in her own, admittedly less life-changing, battle with celiac disease.[65][66]
Filmography
| † | Denotes project that has not yet been released |
Film
Television
Web series
Video games
Stage
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Awards and nominations
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See also
References
External links
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