Amy Brenneman

Amy Frederica Brenneman (born June 22, 1964) is an American actress and producer. She appears as Rachel Mazrachi in the Apple TV+ adaptation of The Shining Girls by South African Author Lauren Beukes.

Amy is best known for her extensive television work, first coming to prominence as Detective Janice Licalsi in the ABC police drama series NYPD Blue (1993–1994). Following this, Brenneman co-created and starred as Judge Amy Gray in the CBS drama series Judging Amy (1999–2005). She received a total of five Primetime Emmy Award nominations for these roles. In subsequent years, Brenneman has had starring roles as Violet Turner in the Shonda Rhimes medical drama series Private Practice (2007–2013), and as Laurie Garvey on the HBO drama series The Leftovers (2014–2017). She has also starred in various films, including Heat (1995), Fear (1996), Daylight (1996), Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), Nine Lives (2005), and The Jane Austen Book Club (2007).

Brenneman was born in New London, Connecticut, to Frederica Joanne (née Shoenfield), a judge of the Connecticut State Superior Court, and Russell Langdon Brenneman Jr., an environmental lawyer. Her aunt was Cold War-era journalist Beryl D. Hines. Her mother was Jewish, and joined a Congregationalist church as an adult. Her father, who was of English, Irish, and Swiss descent, was from a Protestant background.

Brenneman was raised in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where she participated in theatre as a teenager, both in school at Glastonbury High School and with a local theater group. She graduated from Harvard University, where she majored in comparative religion, in 1987. While at Harvard, she co-founded Cornerstone Theatre Company, with which she traveled for several years after graduation.