Ellie Kemper facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ellie Kemper
Kemper in 2002
Born	Elizabeth Claire Kemper (1980-05-02) May 2, 1980 (age 44) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Education	Princeton University (BA) Worcester College, Oxford
Occupation	Actress writer
Years active	1999–present
Spouse(s)	Michael Koman ​ (m. 2012)​
Children	2
Relatives	Carrie Kemper (sister) William Thornton Kemper Sr. (great-great-grandfather)

Elizabeth Claire Kemper (born May 2, 1980) is an American actress, best known for her roles of Erin Hannon in the sitcom The Office (2009–2013) and Kimmy Schmidt in the sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2019). She has also appeared in films, notably Bridesmaids (2011), 21 Jump Street (2012), Sex Tape (2014), and Home Sweet Home Alone (2021). In 2018, she released her debut book, My Squirrel Days.

She earned two consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, and has also been nominated for a Critics' Choice Movie Award, two Critics' Choice Television Awards, three Satellite Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Early life

Kemper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the second of four children of Dorothy Ann "Dotty" (née Jannarone) and David Woods Kemper, a son of one of the wealthiest families in Missouri. Her father is the executive chairman of Commerce Bancshares, a bank holding company founded by the Kemper family. She is the granddaughter of Mildred Lane Kemper, namesake of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis and the great-great-granddaughter of banker, insurance man, and railroad magnate William Thornton Kemper Sr.

She is the elder sister of television writer Carrie Kemper. Kemper is of Italian (from her maternal grandfather), English, French, and German ancestry. Kemper was raised and remains a practicing Roman Catholic.

Education

Kemper in 2002

Kemper's family moved to St. Louis when she was five years old. She attended Conway Elementary School in the affluent suburb of Ladue and high school at John Burroughs School, where she developed an interest in theater and improvisational comedy. One of her teachers was actor Jon Hamm, with whom she appeared in a school play.

Kemper graduated from Princeton University in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. At Princeton, Kemper was a member of the school's improv comedy troupe, Quipfire, which was known for its elaborate pranks. She was also a member of the Ivy Club. As part of her undergraduate degree, Kemper completed an 82-page long senior thesis, titled "Isn't It Ironic?", under the supervision of Susan Wolfson, with contribution from Ulrich C. Knoepflmacher.

As a sophomore, she played on Princeton's 1998 national championship field hockey team, maintaining she sat on the bench "roughly 97 percent" of the time before moving on in the following year to focus on theatre. Kemper attended Worcester College, Oxford, for a year, where she studied towards a master's degree in English literature.

Career

Early comedic career

Kemper continued her interest in improvisational comedy while at Princeton. Kemper participated in Quipfire!, Princeton's oldest improv comedy group, and the Princeton Triangle Club, a touring musical comedy theater troupe. She also appeared in a radio spot for Dunkin' Donuts.

Kemper earned her Screen Actors Guild card doing commercial advertising of a one-week sale of tents at Kmart. She regularly appeared in comedy sketches on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in the late 2000s, and has made guest appearances on Important Things with Demetri Martin, and E! Television's The Gastineau Girls, which has been described as her "breakout role". Though the series was reality TV, her role was scripted. She has appeared on Fuse TV's The P.A. In October 2008, Kemper appeared on The Colbert Report in a PSA for Teen Voter Abstinence. Kemper has written several sketch comedy shows many of them with her comedy partner Scott Eckert, a fellow Princeton grad. Kemper is a contributing writer for the national satirical newspaper The Onion, and for McSweeney's. She is also a contributor to The Huffington Post.

Kemper performing "Feeling Sad/Mad with Ellie Kemper" at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in 2008

Kemper appeared in the Sofia Coppola comedy-drama Somewhere in 2010. She appeared in Bridesmaids in 2011. On April 3, 2013, it was announced that Kemper would be voicing a character in an episode of the animated sitcom American Dad!.

Kemper auditioned for a role in Parks and Recreation, an NBC comedy series started in 2009 by Michael Schur and Greg Daniels, creator of the series The Office. She was not cast in the role, but received a call back to audition for a supporting role in The Office as Erin Hannon, a secretary filling in for the regular secretary Pam Beesly when she briefly left the job at the end of the fifth season. Kemper was cast in the role, and started appearing in the show in April 2009. The character was originally written to be more sarcastic and dry, but the writers changed her to be more perky and optimistic to more closely resemble Kemper herself. Jennifer Celotta, a screenwriter with the series, described Kemper as a "fun addition" to the show.

Television work

Kemper at the 38th People's Choice Awards in January 2012

Kemper received positive reviews for her role in The Office. Alan Sepinwall, television columnist with The Star-Ledger, praised the "infectious joy and sweetness" she brought to the show. Joshua Ostroff of Eye Weekly described Erin as one of the best new television characters of the 2008–2009 season and said, "Erin's high-grade adorability, up-for-anything attitude and sheer niceness is unlike anyone else in the office, adding a welcome new wrinkle for next season." Andy Shaw of TV Fodder said she "adds some freshness to the cast" and Josh McAuliffe of The Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said he liked Erin's "cheerful, appealingly goofy personality". Many critics have singled her out as a highlight of the show's eighth season following Steve Carell's departure.

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Following The Office, she starred in the Netflix original comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as the fish-out-of-water title character. She plays a former abductee and forced cult member who wants to shed the victim pity of her small hometown and moves to New York. Her performance on the show has been widely acclaimed, and she received multiple nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

In summer 2015, Kemper served as a temporary co-host of Today alongside Al Roker, Natalie Morales, Tamron Hall, and Willie Geist.

In 2019, Kemper appeared as a guest judge on season 14 of America's Got Talent where she pushed the Golden Buzzer for light-up dance group Light Balance Kids.

Other work

In 2018, Kemper recorded for the audiobook A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. She also recorded the audiobook for 2019's The Legends of Greemulax, a novel attributed to her character Kimmy Schmidt.

That same year she published her first book, My Squirrel Days.

In 2023, she joined the cast of the Broadway play Peter Pan Goes Wrong making her Broadway debut as Francis for a limited engagement.

Personal life

In 2012, Kemper became engaged to comedy writer Michael Koman. They married on July 7, 2012. They have two sons, born in August 2016 and September 2019. On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Kemper said that her Jewish husband had agreed to raise their children Roman Catholic.

Filmography

Film

Television

See also

In Spanish: Ellie Kemper para niños