Jayne Houdyshell /ˈhaʊdiˌʃɛl/ (born September 25, 1953) is an American actress. Known for being a prolific character actor in theatre, film, and television, Houdyshell has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, two Obie Awards, and a Drama Desk Award.

She made her Broadway debut in the musical A Wonderful Life (2005). She went on to receive the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Humans (2016). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in the Lisa Kron play Well (2006), the revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Follies (2012), the new play by Lucas Hnath A Doll's House, Part 2 (2017), and the revival of Meredith Willson's The Music Man (2022).

She is also known for her supporting film roles in Alexander Payne's science fiction comedy Downsizing (2017) and Greta Gerwig's period piece Little Women, and for reprising her role in the 2021 film adaptation of The Humans. She has had recurring roles in various television series, including Third Watch, Law & Order, Blue Bloods, and The Good Fight. She starred as "Bunny Folger" on the hit Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building, for which she was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series.

Raised in Topeka, Kansas, she is the youngest of four daughters born to Galen "Buzz" Houdyshell and Louella Taylor. She graduated from Topeka High School in 1971, and she went on to Emporia State University then on to graduate with honors from the Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan in 1974.

Since the mid-1970s, she has appeared in more than 200 plays at regional theaters throughout the United States, including the Meadow Brook Theater, Attic Theater, Missouri Repertory Theater, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theater, McCarter Theater, Delaware Theater Company, Wilma Theater, Syracuse Stage, Studio Arena, GeVa Theater, Actors Theater of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Timber Lake Playhouse, Old Creamery Theatre, Totem Pole Playhouse, Peterborough Players, and others.

Houdyshell reminisces that, after moving to Manhattan in 1980, “I was traveling all that 20 years...There was a community of actors who did that. We were itinerant actors who just continually moved around the country from theater to theater and job to job." She has appeared in numerous films, including Changing Lanes (2002) with Ben Affleck, Maid in Manhattan (2002) with Jennifer Lopez, and Garden State (2004) with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman.

Houdyshell's television credits include appearances on Third Watch, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Blue Bloods, and The Good Fight, and as Bunny Folger on Only Murders in the Building. During this time she acted in Trust the Man (2006) with Julianne Moore, and Everybody's Fine (2009) with Robert De Niro, Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore, and Sam Rockwell. She also had a role in the 2010 film The Bounty Hunter with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler

In New York, she is known for her role as "Ann Kron" in the Broadway production of Well by Lisa Kron. It was a role that garnered her a Tony Award nomination in 2006. She won a Theater World Award and an Obie Award, Outstanding Performance, for the Off-Broadway production of Well, which ran in 2004 at the Public Theater.