Paré was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Anthony Paré, former chair of the education department at McGill University, and Louise Mercier, a conference interpreter. She grew up in the Montreal neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce with three brothers. She speaks English and French.
Paré's father was an actor and drama teacher who toured with a theatre company, and her mother acted in amateur productions; her uncle Paul was a comedian with the sketch comedy troupe Radio Free Vestibule. Paré watched her father at rehearsals as a child and became interested in acting while helping him learn his lines for a production of The Tempest.
Her relatives include great-grandfather Al Paré and great-great-uncles Noah and Henry Timmins. 18th-century Irish dramatist, fiction writer, essayist and actress Elizabeth Griffith is also Paré ancestor through her son, politician Richard Griffith.

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