Like Parker Posey, Valerie Harper, and Eve Arden, actress Lizzy Caplan was a brassy brunette with a knack for sharp-tongued comedy. The young Caplan managed to impress audiences in a wide variety of film and television projects – most notably the 2004 feature “Mean Girls.” The dependable player also top-billed in the CBS comedy hit, “The Class” (2006- ), where she played – what else? – a smart and sassy young woman who had a way with a quip.
Born Elizabeth Anne Caplan on June 30, 1982 in Los Angeles, CA, Caplan attended Alexander Hamilton High School and initially studied piano, but clashes with her teachers led her to switch interests to performing. Main roles in school plays lead to her branching out into the professional acting world, and her first on-screen appearance came in the form of the TV-movie, “From Where I Sit” (2000), starring David Paymer and Marcia Gay Harden. Caplan also appeared in four episodes of the critically acclaimed series “Freaks and Geeks” (NBC, 1999-2000) as Jason Segel’s impossibly upbeat and disco-loving girlfriend Sara. She contributed a brief appearance in the pilot episode of “Freaks” producer Judd Apatow’s equally short-lived follow-up series, “Undeclared” (Fox, 2001).
Caplan graduated to leads in 2002, starting with the short film “Hardcore Action News,” in which she plays a morose teenager whose pregnancy is exploited by an unscrupulous news program. The MTV-produced comedy “Everybody’s Doing It” followed, with Caplan as a teenager pressured into signing a sexual abstinence agreement at her high school. A chance to handle a dramatic role came with two appearances on “Smallville” (The WB, 2001- ); Caplan played Tina Greer, a young woman whose exposure to Kryptonite gave her the ability to change her appearance. Like many Caplan roles, Tina had a darker side – a childhood filled with neglect – that prompted her to find attention by committing crimes.
Caplan’s luck as a television series regular continued to be hit-and-miss at best. Her first attempt, “The Pitts” (Fox, 2003) – co-produced by Seth MacFarlane and Mike Scully of “The Simpsons” (Fox, 1989- ) – about a family with catastrophic bad luck, lasted just five episodes. She made it through four episodes of the final season of “Tru Calling” (Fox, 2003-05) before that show was axed as well. Her highly publicized 2005 series “Related” (The WB), about the lives and romances of four sisters in New York, made it to episode 19 before the network shelved it.
In the meantime, she enjoyed a successful career as a film actress, starting in 2002 with a minor role in the Jack Black comedy, “Orange County.” Her breakthrough, however, was widely considered to be “Mean Girls.” As the black-tressed Janis Ian, sardonic sidekick to high school newcomer Lindsay Lohan, Caplan’s comedic skills attracted considerable attention from critics and audiences. She returned to drama with the thriller, “Love is the Drug” (2006), in which she played the seductive crux of a high school love triangle that goes terribly awry.
An undaunted Caplan returned to television with the ensemble sitcom, “The Class,” revealing in interviews that she nearly did not accept the part of Kat Warbler because of its similarity to Janis Ian of “Mean Girls.” The show, created by David Crane of “Friends” (NBC, 1994-2004) fame, saw its ups and downs in its time slot, but the prognosis for a second season seemed positive. Much of the reason for its viewer base has to do with the amusingly tentative relationship between Caplan’s funky, cynical photographer and Jason Ritter’s (son of John) Ethan, a kind-hearted pediatrician who loses his fiancé in the series’ first episode.