Linda Cardellini Bio: In Her Own Words – Video Exclusive, News, Photos, Age

Linda Cardellini is an American actress and voice actress. She is best known for her role as Lindsay Weir in the teen drama Freaks And Geeks. This Linda Cardellini bio will let the actress tell her story in her own words.

Linda Cardellini Bio: Early Life, Age

Linda Cardellini was born on June 25, 1975 (Linda Cardellini age: 46) in Redwood City, California but raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is of Italian, Irish-English, as well as Scottish and German descent. She began acting in school productions starting at the age of ten. She graduated from St. Francis High School. In order to pursue an acting career she moved to Los Angeles shortly after graduation. In 2000, she graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in theater arts. 

Linda Cardellini Bio: Early Career

Like most young actresses, upon moving to Los Angeles Linda Cardellini started out with small roles such as small parts in commercials. Cardellini recalls her very first auditions as challenging. “It was hard. It’s still hard sometimes. Auditioning is difficult,” she told uInterview exclusively. “I’m trying to think of my first experience… When you first start you audition for a lot of commercials — audition for anything you can get an audition for, and just try to tag along to other people’s auditions… Well the first story about it? There are just too many and they’re all mostly embarrassing. It’s a very vulnerable situation, but I remember trying to go in for a commercial and they said ‘can you speak Spanish?’ I said, ‘Oh, sure! I can speak Spanish,; and you know I spoke some Spanish from high school, but I certainty didn’t understand what I was being told, and I tried to pull off a commercial audition in Spanish and i was not as fluent as other people. It was a disaster.”

Cardellini’s first significant role was as Sarah in Bone Chillers, a Goosebumps-like series that chronicles the hauntings, possessions and general creepy encounters that occur to a group of high school freshman. Cardellini went on to have recurring roles in television shows such as Step by Step, Clueless, 3rd Rock from the Sun and Boy Meets World. 

She received a starting part in the miniseries The Lot. 

Linda Cardellini Bio: Film and Television

Cardellini received national exposure with her starring role as Lindsay Weir in Freaks and Geeks, a show about a girl’s existential crisis as she tries to re-make herself and deal with the normal problems of high school life. She also played beloved cartoon character Velma Dinkley in two early 2000s live-action reboots of Scooby-Doo. In 2003 she joined the main cast of ER as Samantha Taggart, staying with the show for 6 seasons until its finale in 2009. During her time on the show, the cast won the TV Land ensemble Icon Award in 2009. Her role as Sylvia Rosen in Mad Men also earned her a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in the 2013 Primetime Emmy Awards. 

Cardellini has also starred in many successful films. Among them include, Dead Man On Campus, Strangeland, Good Burger, Legally Blonde, Kill The Irishman and Return. Her 2005 role of Cassie Cartwright in Brokeback Mountain earned her two more ensemble cast nominations from the Gotham Awards and the Screen Actors Guild.

In 2016 she stared in the bio-pic The Founder as Joan Smith, the mistress of McDonald’s franchise founder Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton).

Cardellini was interested in the complexity of her character, and how Joan was neither good or evil in this story. “I watched YouTubes and I read a lot, and even still, now I’m fascinated with her, and I’m reading the book even though it won’t help me for the part anymore, the movie’s already in the can!” she told uInterview exclusively. ” But I’m fascinated by the idea of her because when he passed away and left her his fortune, she went and gave it all away. And I think that’s a really beautiful twist in the story.”

Perhaps Cardellini’s biggest role to date was in the three-season Netflix series Dead to Me, costarring Christina Applegate and James Marsden. The dark comedy was critically acclaimed and ended in 2022.

Cardellini’s other recent projects include the 2018 film Green Book and the thriller series Bloodline, which aired from 2015  to 2018. She was also featured in the 2023 film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. 

Linda Cardellini Bio: Theatre

Cardellini never truly left her theater roots and has acted in various stage productions. In 1999 she toured in a European production of the fourteenth-century Dutch tragedy, Lancelot.

In 2010, Cardellini toured with the  Dr. God comedy group in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Linda Cardellini Bio: Voice Acting

The prolific actress has lent her voice to many characters. She can be recognized as the voice behind animated characters Bliss Goode from The Goode Family, Wendy from Gravity Falls, C.J. from Regular Show, and Megan Sparkles from Sanjay and Craig. She can also be heard as videogame characters Ursala in the R.P.G. Gladius, Velma in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and Cordelia Starling in Lollipop Chainsaw.

Cardellini has also had a recurring role in the critically acclaimed podcast, The Thrilling Adventure Hour. 

Linda Cardellini Bio: Personal Life

Cardellini dated her Freaks And Geeks co-star Jason Segel, who played her on-screen romantic love-interest, from 2000 until 2005. She got engaged to Steven Rodriguez in 2013. The couple has a daughter, Lilah-Rose, who was born in 2012.

Got a burning question for Linda? Leave a question in the comments If uInterview speaks to her again, we will pick some of the best ones to ask in our interview.