"I never questioned that I
liked it. I would just sit at home and perform for my invisible audience
and was convinced that somebody had to be watching me somewhere." Alyson
Hannigan
A clarinet and soccer player
in her early teens, Alyson Hannigan also began posing for her parents'
photography studio ads. She first appeared on screen at age three months
when she was seen in an educational film titled "Active Parenting." As a
child, Alyson modeled for a string of commercials and printed ads,
including advertising for Duncan Hines cookie mix, and later, McDonald's,
Oreo cookies, Delta Airlines, and Six Flags amusement parks.
After appearing as an extra
in her first real movie, Brad Dourif's Impure Thoughts (1985),
11-year-old Alyson packed for California to further her career. Three
years later, she scored her breakout role of Jessie Mills, Dan Aykroyd's
daughter and Seth Green's girlfriend, in the cult classic comedy movie
My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988, also starring Kim Basinger). Alyson
featured appearance received critical reviews and she was nominated for
Best Young Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Fantasy at the Young
Artist Awards.
The next years watched
Alyson on the small screen. She was a regular in ABC's brief-lived
series "Free Spirit" (1989-1990, played Jessie Harper) and received a
Best Young Actress Starring in a Television Series award at the Young
Artist Awards. She also played roles in several made-for-TV movies like
Switched at Birth (1991), The Stranger Beside Me (1995), A Case for Life
(1996) and For My Daughter's Honor (1996, a.k.a. Indecent Seduction).
Her notable guest appearances including being seen in "Roseanne" (in
1990), "Almost Home" (in 1993), "Touched by an Angel" (in 1994) and
"Picket Fences" (in 1996).
1997 was Alyson's magical
year. She won the role of lesbian witch Willow Rosenberg in the smash
hit teen thriller series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." In the vampire
series, also starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon and
Anthony Head, Alyson portrayed Willow from 1997 until 2003. The show was
a runaway success and handed Alyson a Choice Sidekick (TV) at the Teen
Choice Awards.
"It was so good and it was
the most amazing thing I had ever worked on at that point, so I was
getting to do what I loved to do on a really good project. I mean, she
started as this sort of shy wallflower that couldn't even speak around
boys and then evolved into this lesbian witch that tried to destroy and
save the world many times." Alyson Hannigan (on character Willow
Rosenberg).
While working on the series,
Alyson was also busy acting in such films as Dead Man on Campus (1998,
opposite Tom Everett Scott), Hayley Wagner, Star (1999, TV), Robert
Iscove's Boys and Girls (2000) and the independent feature Beyond the
City Limits (2001), as well as guest starring on Buffy's popular
spin-off "Angel." She was also widely recognized for portraying Michelle
Flaherty, the "band camp girl" in the teen sex comedy American Pie
(1999) and its sequels, American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding
(2003).
In 2004, Alyson debuted on
the London stage at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, in an adaptation of Rob
Reiner's 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally, (playing Sally
opposite Luke Perry). She has also appeared twice in the series "That
'70s Show" and "Veronica Mars." Alyson will star in the approaching
series "How I Met Your Mother" (with Neil Patrick Harris) and in an
untitled Aaron Seltzer/Jason Friedberg project.
"I don't want to start
believing what you can believe in this business. I want to stay true to
who I am by trying to be in the moment. I love this profession, but God,
it can just destroy people and I don't want that to happen and become
some monster." Alyson Hannigan
Birthday: |
März 24, 1974 |
Birthtown: |
Washington, DC |
Eyes/Hair: |
Green/red |
Tattoos: |
Tribal dolphins on her ankle;
Japanese kanji (for luck and happiness) on her back |
|