What You Don't Know About Alison Brie
This article includes descriptions of mental illness.
Since making her screen debut in the mid-2000s, Alison Brie has demonstrated remarkable versatility as an actor. That's apparent when contrasting her three best-known roles: self-asserting 1960s housewife Trudy Campbell in "Mad Men," straight-laced community college student Annie Edison in "Community," and Ruth Wilder in "GLOW" — a struggling actor in 1980s Los Angeles who winds up becoming a professional wrestler in a ramshackle organization known as the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
Of course, by no means are those three diverse characters her only ones. As her IMDb credits demonstrate, other notable roles have included Sidney Prescott's doomed book publicist in "Scream 4," an emotionally unstable medieval nun in "The Little Hours," the voice of Diane Nguyen in Netflix animated comedy "Bojack Horseman," and rambunctious bride Suzie Barnes-Eilhauer in "The Five-Year Engagement."
However, Brie's career is continuously on the rise. Having embarked on behind-the-scenes efforts as a writer, producer, and director, it's clear that this multi-talented multi-hyphenate has seemingly only just scratched the surface of showing us her talents. As she told Salon about her ever-evolving career, Brie's boundless love for the entire process of bringing a story to the screen means that she still has plenty of roles and projects to explore. "My favorite part of filmmaking is the collaboration between artists on every level in the film," she explained. "The more that I get to work behind the camera, that's my favorite part too — seeing the artistry." Here's what you don't know about Alison Brie.
A childhood accident nearly left her blind
When Alison Brie was just 7, she fell down in the school playground and smashed the back of her head on concrete. This led to one of the most frightening experiences in her life. "I'm in the backseat of my dad's car and boom. I can't see a thing," she explained on an episode of the "HypochondriActor" podcast. "It's sort of like how, when you close your eyes, it's black, but you can a little bit see light and shadows." As Dr. Priyanka Wali explained in the episode, Brie's teachers made a mistake by allowing the potentially concussed child to lie down and close her eyes rather than ensuring that her symptoms — which included confusion — were closely monitored.
Understandably, the actor was panic-stricken when she realized she was losing her vision. "I start[ed] hysterically crying because I could feel myself trying to open my eyes as wide as possible ... It wasn't computing." She was then taken to a hospital, where she underwent a CAT scan and other tests. At the time, her parents were told that if her vision didn't return within 12 hours, it was probable it never would.
When she awoke the next day, she was miraculously able to see. However, the experience continues to resonate with her, leading her to fully appreciate her gift of sight. "I do think like I'm constantly taking visuals of things all the time like I'm shooting this movie," she shared.
Alison Brie once worked as a clown
Like most teenagers, Alison Brie held a part-time job while attending high school. Her job, however, was far from typical. "I worked as a clown for a while, at children's birthday parties," she told Chelsey. "... I was 17 or 18 at the time, so it was not tragic." As she told Vulture, she had built up a wide range of clown-related skills. "I did balloon animals. I painted faces. I would do characters," she proclaimed. "... I was a super-fun clown."
For another gig, she was dressed as one of the Powerpuff Girls — a costume that required an oversized cranium and an undersized miniskirt. "It was a real challenge having to balance the head and try not to show underwear while painting children's faces and being ogled at by dads," she told Marie Claire. Unsurprisingly, she wound up quitting the stressful job.
However, Brie credits her clown skills for giving her the bravery necessary to pursue an acting career. "There is nothing more terrifying than walking in alone to a group of 20 seven-year-olds," she told Chelsey. "Then you are just going to entertain them for the next two hours, so it was [a] good boot camp for the acting world." As she explained during an appearance on NBC's "Today," her clowning experience also taught her how to hold people's attention in a room — a skill that later became particularly valuable during auditions.
Her British accent is seriously convincing
In 2012, Alison Brie appeared in the big-screen comedy "The Five-Year Engagement" as the sister of Emily Blunt's British character. However, while her co-star is actually British in real life, Brie is not. Regardless, the "Community" star's British accent was so convincing that the movie's producer, Judd Apatow, assumed she was as British as her character. "I didn't know that she wasn't from England," he admitted in an interview with the Independent.
According to Apatow, someone pointed out to him that Brie was also starring in "Mad Men" — a show that the "Knocked Up" filmmaker watched regularly. He recalled, "I thought, 'What is the matter with me, how much cholesterol medication am I on that I didn't notice that?' She's so great." Brie confirmed Apatow's recollection, admitting that her British accent seemed to hoodwink him. She added, "He congratulated me on how great my American accent was in 'Mad Men.' I was all, 'No wait, that's the real accent, that's how I sound.'"
As Brie told The Hollywood Reporter, at the time she was cast she'd actually been practicing a British accent just in case she ever required one for a role. What makes her accent in the film so authentic was that she closely studied Blunt in order to match her cadence so they'd be convincing as sisters. "There was a lot of mimicking going on," she admitted.
She's part of an all-female vocal trio
Not only is Alison Brie a respected and sought-after actor, but she's also ventured into the world of music. What was once a hobby turned professional when she banded together with fellow singing actors, Cyrina Fiallo and Julianna Guill, to form a musical trio dubbed The Girls. As Brie told The Bay Bridged, the group is an enjoyable amusement for the three friends to do together, but it's also something that they find to be empowering. "As actresses, you're not always in control of where your next job is or what kind of job it is," she explained. "Through making this music together, it's fun to dictate what kind of stuff we want to work on together."
Blending comedy and music, The Girls specializes in cover tunes, ranging from Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl" to Childish Gambino's "These Girls" — an interesting choice, since Childish Gambino is the musical persona of Brie's "Community" co-star, Donald Glover.
Speaking with Riff, Brie was quick to discourage any comparisons between her own musical endeavors and those undertaken by her former sitcom co-star under his Childish Gambino persona. "He's a professional musician," she said. "Donald's talent is way above and beyond my own ... I love music. I love to sing, and we do this kind of as a hobby because it's fun for us."
Alison spent most of her college years naked
Alison Brie studied theater at the California Institute of the Arts, which offered a unique college experience due to its clothing-optional policy. As Brie explained during an appearance on "Conan," the only place in the school where clothing was required was the cafeteria. "I think [it's] a really good policy. Because the last thing you want at the salad bar is, like, testicles."
Brie told Men's Journal that the college encouraged students to express themselves without limits and that she subsequently became something of a nudist. "I would exercise my right to be naked — taking a jog through school naked, or making my roommate laugh by hanging naked from the tree outside our dorm. It was just funny to me." As she elaborated on "Conan," the naked monkey bit was also done in a bid to cheer her roommate up if she were ever feeling down.
As it turned out, her au naturel college experience became ideal preparation for her first onscreen nude scene, in "GLOW." Once her clothes came off, she was pretty much back in her comfort zone. "Getting naked on camera is like ripping off a Band-Aid," she told Playboy. "Once I was naked, it kind of reminded me of my nudist days from college and that feeling of, 'Oh yeah, I love my body and this is fun and silly and it's fine.'"
Her first TV role was in Hannah Montana
In 2006, Alison Brie landed her first-ever television role, in the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana." As she told W Magazine, she knew little about the show, which starred a teenage Miley Cyrus. "I played Miley's brother's character's sort of love interest for the episode," she explained. "I was a kooky hairdresser and what I remember most about the episode is that for my audition, I came in and took a big swing at a Long Island accent which was not requested. And then, I kept doing." Brie felt that her accent had made an impression when she was hanging out in a hallway and covertly overheard the casting people asking other actors auditioning for the role if they were able to do a similar accent.
After being hired, she told "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" (via Yahoo! Entertainment) that she was hit with a bit of a curveball when she arrived on the set. "I come in for the first rehearsal with the director and everybody and I'm doing my shtick, and the director's just like, 'Great. Just lose the accent. We'll go from there,'" she recalled.
At the time, Cyrus was yet to achieve her current level of fame. "I didn't know who she was," Brie confessed to Playboy. Regardless, she was impressed by the star's low-key demeanor. "[Miley was] a sweet, goofy teenager. I don't think she would remember me now, but I'm still a big fan," she explained.
Brie's romance with Dave Franco began at Mardi Gras
Alison Brie has been married to actor, Dave Franco, since 2017, first meeting each other in New Orleans during Mardi Gras in 2011. Set up by a friend, the couple became acquainted in the midst of the booze-fuelled bacchanal. "So then it was 48 hours of drugs and sex [and] a lot of making out," she said on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" (via Page Six).
Recalling their first meeting during an appearance on "The Late Late Show With James Cordon," Franco revealed that Brie wore a festive silver mask during their first night together. "What she didn't know was that I kept the mask," he said. Five years later, he got down on one knee and proposed to the "GLOW" star while wearing that very same accessory. "But, because it had been five years, she couldn't place the mask," he said. "So the entire proposal is her saying, 'What is happening right now?' And it's me trying to explain how sweet it is that I kept the mask for five years!" he recalled.
As Brie told Yahoo! Life, until she met Franco, she never really saw herself as the type who'd get married. However, upon realizing she wanted to grow old with the actor, her position on the matter quickly shifted. "I actually think it's much more romantic when two people are like, 'Oh, I could go either way on marriage, but I want to marry you.'"
She did double duty on Community and Mad Men
The year after making her screen debut in "Hannah Montana," Alison Brie was cast in "Mad Men" as Trudy, the wife of Sterling Cooper sales rep Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser). As she told NPR's "Fresh Air," she was a fairly recent college graduate when she was cast, adding, "I was still living at home with my mom." Then, in 2009, she landed the series-regular role of Annie in the NBC sitcom "Community," which led to some pretty meticulous scheduling whenever production of both shows overlapped. "For about eight months of the year it's pretty crazy when we're in production on 'Community' and 'Mad Men' at the same time," she told Vulture in 2012. "It's mostly like I don't have much of a life at all when we're shooting the shows ..."
Speaking with Collider, she detailed the behind-the-scenes differences between both respective sets. "['Mad Men' creator] Matt Weiner I think is notorious for being very specific and deservedly so," she said, noting his penchant for perfectionism and script-accurate performances. On the other end of the spectrum, she described "Community" creator — and "Rick and Morty" co-creator — Dan Harmon a little differently. "Dan's got this crazy genius mind. I think it thrives more in chaos," she explained. "... It was a little messier, but it really worked for the type of show we were making."
Landing her GLOW role took a lot of auditions
When the script for "GLOW" arrived on Alison Brie's radar, she really wanted to land the role of struggling actor-turned-pro wrestler, Ruth Wilder, in the Netflix series. And while fans of the show will likely have a difficult time imagining any other actor in the role, getting cast was a grueling process that included multiple auditions and the ever-present specter of rejection. "They did not want me to have this part," Brie told IndieWire. "I've never felt more like Ruth than when I was auditioning for this show." In fact, she auditioned four times — twice solo and two alongside co-star Betty Gilpin in order to gauge the chemistry between them. "It felt like a series of tests," Brie admitted, insisting she was so adamant about landing the part that she acquiesced to every request.
As Brie said in an interview with The Scotsman, her agent told her more than once that producers felt she just wasn't right to play Ruth — an opinion that she fought hard to change. "So I had to work to win them over and I felt myself becoming more and more like the character every time I came in again to audition," said Brie. After battling so hard for the role, the victory was particularly sweet when she was ultimately cast as the character. "It's very satisfying to fight for something you really believe in and prove people wrong," she mused.
She did all her own stunts on GLOW
Landing the leading role in "GLOW" was just the beginning. Once Alison Brie was cast, she underwent extensive physical training in order to convincingly play a professional wrestler. As the actor's trainer, Jason Walsh, told Women's Health when she first began she couldn't do a single pushup. She then embarked on a regime of four workouts per week, of between 60 to 90 minutes each. "I feel like I was building strength outside and in at the same time," Brie said. "Now I feel like strength is beautiful, rather than that stick-skinny is the beauty standard."
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Walsh explained that the star's regime was designed to enhance her strength. "Pound for pound, ridiculously strong," he noted. "She ended up performing 100 percent of her stunts. That's unheard of.
In addition to strength training, Brie also worked with the pro wrestler, Chavo Guerrero Jr., and stunt coordinator, Shauna Duggins. She told the AV Club that all that varied training led her to develop a whole new relationship with her own physicality. "You start to think of your body like an athlete thinks of their body," she explained. Like, 'How can I train in the gym so I can more easily do this move in the ring?' And your body becomes this machine and like an amazing tool that's working for you rather than, women with dieting, where you're kind of at odds with your body."
Alison Brie would be totally down to play a superhero
In 2020, reports emerged that Marvel had issued a casting call seeking an "Alison Brie type" for its upcoming "She-Hulk" series. As the actor explained during an appearance on "The Late Late Show With James Cordon" she had been unaware that she was being referenced in the casting call. "Honestly, I found [it] very exciting because for years I've auditioned for the Anne Hathaway type or the Zooey Deschanel type," she said. "I was like very flattered to be my own type."
While the role of She-Hulk ultimately went to Tatiana Maslany of "Orphan Black" fame, Brie confirmed that the lack of superhero roles in her IMBd credits hasn't been for lack of trying. "I've gone through auditions for Marvel movies and auditioned a million times for roles with three lines and you are begging for them," she said during a 2018 appearance at ATX Television Festival, per Entertainment Weekly. "And I'd be glad to get them! It's brutal, it just is."
Asked during an interview with Insider whether she was still keen to play a superhero, Brie replied, "I would love to." However, she also pointed out that playing a pro wrestler did manage to satiate some of those superheroic urges. "I think especially after working on 'GLOW,' where we all felt like we were superheroes, in a way it has satisfied my desire to do something like that," she explained.
She's branched out into writing and directing
While there's no denying that Alison Brie's acting career has been thriving, she's also forged a path toward an ancillary career behind the camera. In 2016, she served as one of the many producers of the comedy series "Teachers." In 2019, she expanded her repertoire even further when she directed an episode of "GLOW." She also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2020 Netflix movie "Horse Girl," in which she also starred.
That same year, Brie was indirectly reunited with her former "Community" co-star Gillian Jacobs when they each directed separate episodes of the Disney Plus anthology docu-series "Marvel 616," which took a deep dive into the iconic comic publisher's ongoing legacy. In 2021, she reunited with Jeff Baena (with whom she co-wrote "Horse Girl") to write the screenplay for the romantic comedy "Spin Me Round," which Baena directed and in which she also starred.
Both "Horse Girl" and "Spin Me Round" represent Brie taking a more proactive role in her career. Rather than keep enduring the frustration of waiting for the right role to come along, and then competing for it, she decided to take charge and create the opportunities she wanted for herself. She told Observer that developing her own projects gave her a satisfying sense of agency. "It felt important to me to have more ownership over the work I was doing and a little more power in terms of dictating the roles I would be playing," she noted.
Her grandmother's mental illness inspired a movie
For her first screenplay, Alison Brie collaborated with Jeff Baena on "Horse Girl," which debuted on Netflix in 2020. In it, the actor depicts the film's titular Horse Girl, a socially awkward young woman with an affinity for horses, whose vivid dreams begin leaking into her waking life.
As Brie told Vulture, the story was a deeply personal one for her, based upon the mental ill-health that her grandmother endured. "My mother's mother lived with paranoid schizophrenia, and my mother grew up in a really traumatic situation," she explained. "And I grew up with the mythology of my grandmother's mental illness, hearing a lot of stories about my mother's childhood and how the mental illness affected her." As Brie delved deeper, she realized her lifelong fascination with her grandmother — who died when Brie was a young child — represented her own fears of mental illness in her ancestry. "When will it come out? And will I have the awareness to know when it's happening?" she wondered.
However, rather than tell her grandmother's story, Brie used it as a kicking-off point for a wholly original psychological thriller. "What would happen if someone had mental illness in their bloodline and then some things started happening to them that they couldn't explain?" Brie told Refinery29. "What are the implications of the way that they see their own mental health? Does that start to become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy?"
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
Alison Brie knows the value of a dollar
As an actor-slash-writer-slash-producer-slash-director who's become increasingly drawn to writing and producing her own projects, Alison Brie has taken the reins of her career. That strategy can be seen in her bank account, with Celebrity Net Worth estimating that she's worth an impressive $10 million.
Despite that considerable fortune, the star is not one for lavish displays of wealth. "I was certainly raised to be very frugal," she told InStyle. "I saved my money for so long." She credits that frugality to her humble middle-class upbringing, stating, "My parents really instilled in me the value of a dollar." In fact, she revealed that philosophy is why she managed to hang onto the money that she's earned. Brie didn't move out of her mom's home until Season 3 of "Community," and Season 5 of "Mad Men." "I never had to live in a really sh***y apartment, which was nice, but I also didn't buy myself a new car until our final season of 'Community,'" she shared.
It's only since she became involved with her husband, Dave Franco, that she embraced the idea of spending some of her money on herself. "I think Dave has taught me how to spend my money well, which is kind of a nice thing," said Brie. "I think I had gone too far in the other direction, being so frugal for so long, that now it feels nice once in a while. We work really hard to be able to spend our money."