Leslie Mann biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Leslie J. Mann was born in San Francisco, California, on March 26, 1972. She and her siblings were raised by their single mother, who worked as a real estate agent to support the family. Mann grew up in Newport Beach, California, where she attended Corona del Mar High School. Mann had an early interest in acting and began auditioning for commercials as a teenager, receiving parts in advertisements for products such as Coke and nail polish.

Career Breakthrough

Leslie Mann took acting classes with veteran actor Joanne Baron in Santa Monica, California, and studied comedy with the Groundlings, an improvisational troupe and acting school based in Los Angeles. In the 1990s she began to receive roles in lesser-known films such as Things I Never Told You and Last Man Standing (both released in1996).

Although Mann hadn't begun acting with a set idea about the types of projects she wanted, her gift for comedy soon became evident. Her breakthrough was a part in Ben Stiller's 1996 dark comedy The Cable Guy, starring Jim Carrey; she played the girlfriend of Matthew Broderick's character. She continued to receive comedic roles and appeared with Ed Burns in She's the One in 1996, Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle in 1997 and Adam Sandler in 1999's Big Daddy.

Marriage and Films With Judd Apatow

When she was auditioning for The Cable Guy, Mann met Judd Apatow, who was one of the film's producers. Mann and Apatow married in 1997. Apatow cast Mann in several of his projects, including the short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks (2000) as well as his hugely popular films. Mann played a drunken party girl who goes on a date with Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005, the irritable sister of Katherine Heigl's character in Knocked Up in 2007, and Adam Sander's ex-girlfriend in Funny People in 2009.

In 2010, Mann and Paul Rudd reprised their husband-and-wife characters from Knocked Up in Apatow's This Is 40, a film that reportedly drew much of its humor from Mann and Apatow's own married life.

Other Film Roles

Mann has also consistently appeared in other film projects. She was featured in Mike Figgis' experimental drama Timecode in 2000, as well as several comedies over the following decade, including Orange County (2002), 17 Again with teen idol Zac Efron in 2009, the Jim Carrey comedy I Love You Phillip Morris (also in 2009) and 2011's The Change-Up. She also had a supporting role in the independent drama Little Birds in 2011 and voice-acted a role in the animated, 3-D children's film ParaNorman in 2012.