Elizabeth Banks

Elizabeth Irene Banks (née Mitchell; February 10, 1974) is an American actress, director, and producer. She is known for playing chaperone Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015) and an ICCA commentator in the Pitch Perfect film series (2012–2017). She made her directorial film debut with Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), whose $69 million opening-weekend gross set a record for a first-time director. She directed the action comedy Charlie's Angels (2019) and the horror comedy film Cocaine Bear (2023). Banks founded the film and television production company Brownstone Productions in 2002 with her husband, Max Handelman.

Banks made her film debut in the low-budget independent film Surrender Dorothy (1998). She has appeared in films such as Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007), Seabiscuit (2003), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Slither (2006), Invincible (2006), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), Role Models (2008), The Next Three Days (2010), Man on a Ledge (2012), What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012), Movie 43 (2013), The Lego Movie film series (2014–2019), Love & Mercy (2014), Walk of Shame (2014), Magic Mike XXL (2015), Power Rangers (2017), Brightburn (2019), Call Jane (2022), Migration (2023), and Skincare (2024).

On television, Banks had a recurring role as Avery Jessup on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2010–2012), which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. She had recurring roles on the comedy series Scrubs (2006–2009) and Modern Family (2009–2020), the latter of which earned her a third Primetime Emmy Award nomination. She also starred in the Netflix miniseries Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015) and Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017). Since 2019, Banks has hosted the ABC revival of the game show Press Your Luck.

Banks was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and grew up there, the eldest of four children of Ann (née Wallace) and Mark P. Mitchell. Her father, a Vietnam War veteran, was a factory worker for General Electric and her mother worked in a bank. She describes her family as "very meat-and-potatoes, old-school Irish Catholic." Growing up, she played baseball and rode horses. She was in Little League when she broke her leg sliding into third base. She then tried out for the school play, which was her start in acting.

She graduated from Pittsfield High School in 1992, and is a member of the Massachusetts Junior Classical League. She attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and was elected to the Friars Senior Society. She graduated magna cum laude in 1996 majoring in communications and minoring in theater arts. In 1998, she graduated from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, earning a MFA degree.

Banks changed her name upon joining the Screen Actors Guild, as actress Elizabeth Mitchell was already registered in the union under that name.

After auditioning in New York, she was offered a role on the soap opera Santa Barbara. Taking the role would have required her to quit her education at the American Conservatory Theater, and as she had taken out student loans to complete her degree, she declined the offer. She made her acting debut in the 1998 independent film Surrender Dorothy as Elizabeth Casey, and appeared in various films over the next seven years, including Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Swept Away (2002) and Seabiscuit (2003). Her most notable role up to that point was Betty Brant in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007).

In 2002, Banks set up her own production company, Brownstone Productions, with her future husband, Max Handelman.