Mamie Gummer

b. 1983 · American actress of stage, film and television

Biography

Mamie Gummer (Mary Willa Gummer; born August 3, 1983, in New York City) is an American actress working across stage, film and television. The eldest daughter of Meryl Streep and sculptor Don Gummer, she began appearing on screen as a child and has built a career that moves between New York theatre and screen productions.

Her first screen appearance came as a toddler in Heartburn (1986), alongside her mother, where she was credited as Natalie Stern to avoid press attention. After graduating from Northwestern University in 2005, she made her off-Broadway debut in Mr. Marmalade, earning a Theatre World Award, and in 2007 she received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for The Water's Edge. Her adult film debut came in The Hoax (2006), directed by Lasse Hallström, and in Evening (2007) she played her mother as a young woman. On television she joined the cast of the miniseries John Adams (2008), made her Broadway debut in Les liaisons dangereuses that same year, and became recognisable through a recurring role as Nancy Crozier on The Good Wife. She headlined the short-lived Emily Owens, M.D. (2012), which was cancelled during its first season, and later joined the third season of True Detective as Lucy Purcell.

In the following years she worked in films such as Side Effects (2013), Cake (2014) and Ricki and the Flash (2015), while her stage work continued to draw recognition, including a Drama Desk Award nomination in 2016 for Ugly Lies the Bone. She is married to screenwriter Mehar Sethi, with whom she has two children, and has been involved with charities including the Women's Refugee Commission and the Nomi Network. In February 2025 the couple filed for divorce.

Key films

Heartburn (1986): child debut opposite Meryl Streep in Mike Nichols's romantic comedy.
Evening (2007): plays the younger version of her mother's character in a drama about memory and lost love.
Side Effects (2013): supporting role in Steven Soderbergh's psychological thriller.
Cake (2014): appears in the drama starring Jennifer Aniston about grief and chronic pain.
Ricki and the Flash (2015): a rock singer's homecoming comedy-drama, opposite Meryl Streep.