Landecker was born September 30, 1969, in Chicago, Illinois.[1] She is the daughter of John Records Landecker, a Chicago radio personality.[2] One of her maternal great-grandfathers was lawyer Joseph N. Welch.[3] She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying theater. Her paternal grandfather was a German Jewish refugee.[4]
Career
Landecker earned her Screen Actors Guild card doing a voiceover for a Tampax commercial. In the commercial, Landecker echoes the voice of the on-camera actress, saying only the word "ballet", but made $10,000 in residuals from the commercial. Landecker recalls, "I never saw money like that in my life, and it didn't even matter what I looked like! I was hooked on [voiceover] from then on!"[5]
Early in her career, Landecker primarily focused on stage work, including but not limited to Rajiv Joseph's All This Intimacy in 2006, and did not move to Los Angeles until she was 38.[6] Since then, she has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including a supporting role as Mrs. Samsky in the Academy Award for Best Picture-nominated film A Serious Man, directed by the Coen brothers.[7] That performance received praise from many film critics, including Roger Ebert, who wrote, "Amy Landecker, too, is perfect as Mrs. Samsky. She makes the character sexy in a strictly logical sense, but any prudent man would know on first sight to stay clear".[8]
Landecker divorced Jackson Lynch, with whom she has a daughter, in 2011.[14][15] She began dating actor Bradley Whitford, whom she met on the set of Transparent, in 2015.[16] They announced their engagement in March 2018 and married on July 17, 2019.[14]
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