Early life
Perkins was born in the borough of Queens, New York, and was raised in Colrain, Massachusetts, following her parents' divorce in 1963. Her father, James Perkins, was a businessman, farmer, and writer; her mother, Jo Williams, was a concert pianist and drug treatment counselor.1 Her paternal grandparents were Greek immigrants from Thessaloniki who had anglicized the family surname from "Pisperikos" to "Perkins" upon arriving in the United States.1
She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite preparatory institution in Massachusetts.1 She then pursued formal actor training at the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University in Chicago, earning a Certificate in Acting between 1978 and 1981.1 After completing her training, she joined the first national touring company of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs (running 1983 into 1984) as a co-starring member, an engagement that brought her back to New York and led directly to her Broadway debut as a replacement in the same Simon play in 1984.1
Career
Perkins made her film debut in Edward Zwick's About Last Night (1986), adapted from a David Mamet play and co-starring Demi Moore and Rob Lowe.1 Her breakout came two years later with Penny Marshall's Big (1988), in which she played Susan Lawrence, the adult love interest of Tom Hanks' twelve-year-old-boy-in-a-man's-body protagonist. The film was a major commercial and critical hit; Hanks received an Academy Award nomination for his performance, and Perkins became widely recognized as a leading actress.1
She followed Big with Barry Levinson's ensemble drama Avalon (1990), playing part of a Baltimore Jewish family over several generations, and with The Doctor (1991), where her portrayal of a terminal cancer patient opposite William Hurt drew critical praise.1 She played Wilma Flintstone in Brian Levant's live-action The Flintstones (1994) and appeared in the same year's remake of Miracle on 34th Street.1
In 2003, Perkins lent her voice to the Disney/Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, voicing Coral, the mother of the title character, in the film's opening scenes.1 She appeared in The Ring Two (2005) and the family comedy Hop (2011).1
Her most celebrated work arrived on television. Cast as the sardonic, scheming Celia Hodes on Showtime's Weeds beginning in 2005, she brought the show's primary antagonist to life across five seasons, departing the series in 2009.1 The performance earned her three consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Made-for-TV Film (2006 and 2007).1 The entire Weeds cast also received a Screen Actors Guild ensemble nomination in 2007.1 Perkins has cited Celia Hodes as her favorite role.
Her television work since Weeds has been consistently high-profile. She appeared in the critically praised HBO miniseries Sharp Objects (2018) and in the Netflix wrestling drama GLOW (2017-2019). She had a recurring role on NBC's family drama This Is Us from 2017 to 2022, and starred in the Fox comedy The Moodys (2019-2021).1 More recent credits include The Afterparty (2023) and Minx (2023) on streaming platforms, as well as a role voicing May Parker, a quippy Spider-Person variant, in Sony's animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023).2 Her feature film appearances in 2025 included Another Simple Favor and The Housemaid.2
Early in her career Perkins also worked with the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Steppenwolf Theater Company, where she had trained alongside members of that company's celebrated ensemble.1
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)
Perkins was cast as Phyllis Adler, a distinguished guest lecturer at Columbia University, in Paul Feig's Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016). The Phyllis Adler scene, titled "Phil and Phyllis" on the home video edition, does not appear in the film's theatrical release and is exclusive to the extended cut released on home video.
In the scene, Phyllis has been invited by Professor Daniels to speak to his astrophysics and cosmology students as part of "The Advancement of Cosmological Studies Lecture Series," sponsored by the University Foundation and the Department of Physics. She is introduced to Erin Gilbert by Erin's boyfriend and colleague Phil Hudson. Phyllis is characterized as a formidably contrary academic: she dismisses journal publication as harmful to science, insists awards are the only effective tool for drawing attention to good research, and refutes every conversational position Erin takes in real time, including the idiomatic use of "fingers crossed." The exchange establishes Erin's social awkwardness in professional settings and her tendency to try too hard to impress established figures.
The poster board displayed at the start of the scene provides background details for the character: Phyllis holds the title of Distinguished Professor Lecturer; she recently returned from a colloquium on "Cosmic Spatulation in a Maximally Symmetric Space"; she is described as a most highly regarded engineering physicist of the 21st century, known for controversial theories; she maintains an H-Index of 98 through self-published work and international research; she hosts a podcast called "Killer Cosmos" and makes frequent appearances on New York public access television and public radio; and her lecture that evening was to cover "Magnetohydrodynamics: Unlocking Planetary Mechanics." Two additional details, added as character texture, note that Phyllis's brooch depicts Cryptocercus (a genus of cockroach) and her leather bag is made of ape hide.
Personal life
Perkins was married to actor Terry Kinney from 1984 to 1988.1 She has one daughter with filmmaker Maurice Phillips.1 In 2000, she married Argentine cinematographer Julio Macat, with whom she has three stepsons: Maximillian, Alexander, and Andreas.1
In 2005, at age 44, she was diagnosed with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA).1 In 2017, Perkins spoke publicly at a Los Angeles rally against sexual harassment, where she named actor James Woods as someone who had behaved inappropriately toward her.1
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Elizabeth Perkins," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Perkins
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IMDb, "Elizabeth Perkins," accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001610/
