Ellen Muth

Early life

Muth was born in Milford, Connecticut, the daughter of Rachel and Erich Muth.

In 2004, Muth was a member of Intertel and Mensa. She has attended the Skip Barber Racing School.

Career

After a brief stint as a model with Ford Models and Rascal's Agency, Muth pursued a career in acting, studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City, and getting her first professional experience doing commercials in 1993. Her first major role was in the 1995 film Dolores Claiborne. She followed that with a role in the eighth season premiere of Law & Order.

Muth's appearance as the daughter in the 1999 film The Young Girl and the Monsoon prompted the following review by Stephen Holden of The New York Times:

Ellen Muth, a 19-year-old actress who looks considerably younger, virtually explodes in the role of Constance, the volatile 13-year-old only child of divorced parents. An emotional powder keg who one minute can be as clinging as a baby and the next delights in cruelly demolishing the nearest grownup with laser-like sarcasm, Constance is a flailing mood swing on a circuitous warpath. The film ... crackles dangerously to life whenever Constance (who narrates the film) is on the screen with her father Hank (Terry Kinney).

In 2000, her work included appearances in episodes of The Beat and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as a role in The American Collection adaptation of "Cora Unashamed", a short story by Langston Hughes from his 1934 collection The Ways of White Folks. Muth also had a guest role in "Don't Ask", the original unaired pilot episode of the 2000 Fox show eventually airing as Normal, Ohio, but the show was revamped, resulting in the elimination of her role. This same year, Muth played the lead in the Lifetime Original Movie The Truth About Jane, about a high school girl's struggle with her sexuality and acceptance.

Muth's most widely known work was as the star of the 2003–04 Showtime television series Dead Like Me, where she played Georgia "George" Lass, the protagonist and one of a team of reapers led by Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin.

Muth's next roles were lower in profile. She appeared in Jack 'n' Jill, a 2007 MFA thesis film. She voiced the character of Addie Vost in the first animated short of Tofu the Vegan Zombie and a character in the audio dramatization "Anne Manx in the Empress Blair Project". In September 2008 she joined three other actors at the Theatre Artist Workshop in Norwalk, Connecticut in a reading of Fleece the Flock, an original musical comedy in development and directed by Joel Vig.

After some delay, Dead like Me: Life After Death a film directed by Stephen Herek, based on Dead Like Me, and featuring many members of the show's cast, was released direct-to-video in March 2009.

In 2012 Muth returned to the big screen in the romantic comedy Margarine Wars alongside Robert Loggia and Doris Roberts. The film debuted in Los Angeles on March 29, 2012.

Muth made a guest appearance in two episodes of the first season of the TV series Hannibal, produced by Bryan Fuller, the creator of Dead Like Me.

Awards and nominations

Muth was one of two actresses who shared a best supporting actress award at the 1995 Tokyo International Film Festival, recognition Muth earned for her screen debut in Dolores Claiborne. In 1999 she won the American Film Institute (AFI) Best Actress Award for The Young Girl and the Monsoon.

In 2004, Muth was nominated twice for Dead Like Me. This included a Saturn Award nomination in the Best Actress in a Television Series category. She was nominated for a Satellite Award in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama series.