Elizabeth Perkins

Elizabeth Ann Perkins (born November 18, 1960) is a Greek American actress. Her film roles have included About Last Night (1986), Big (1988), Avalon (1990), and He Said, She Said (1991), The Flintstones (1994), Miracle on 34th Street (1994), and her brief voice role as Coral in the Disney/Pixar animated film Finding Nemo (2003). She is also well known for her role as Celia Hodes in the Showtime TV series Weeds, for which she received three Primetime Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. Perkins was born in Queens, New York, to Jo Williams, a drug treatment counselor, and James Perkins, a farmer, writer, and businessman. She has two sisters[citation needed]. Her paternal grandparents were Greek immigrants from Salonika who anglicized their surname from "Pisperikos" to "Perkins" when they moved to the United States. Perkins was raised in Colrain, Massachusetts; her parents divorced in 1963. She began working in theatre with Arena Civic Theatre, a non-profit community theatre group based in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Perkins attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite preparatory school, and then spent 1978 to 1981 in Chicago attaining her Certificate in Acting from the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University. In 1984, she made her theatrical debut on Broadway in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs and afterward, worked in a number of ensemble companies, including The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Steppenwolf Theater.