June Diane Raphael
Age: 44
Birthplace: Rockville Centre, New York, United States
June Diane Raphael (RAY-feel; born January 4, 1980) is an American actress, comedian, and screenwriter best known for starring in comedy programs such as Burning Love, Adult Swim's NTSF:SD:SUV:: and currently in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie. Notable film work includes supporting roles in Year One and Unfinished Business, as well as her 2013 Sundance film Ass Backwards, which she co-wrote and starred in with her creative partner Casey Wilson. She also co-hosts the popular movie discussion podcast How Did This Get Made? alongside Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas.
Early life
Raphael was born and raised in Rockville Centre, New York, to Diane and John Raphael, where she graduated from South Side High School in 1998. She is of partial Irish descent and raised Catholic. She has two older sisters, Lauren and Deanna.
Raphael attended New York University (NYU), where she studied acting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. After graduating from NYU in 2002, Raphael and her best friend from college, Casey Wilson, studied improvisational comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City, where they would eventually run their two-woman sketch show for a number of years. Performing the long-running stage show opened doors for them as writers. After performing the show at the "U.S. Comedy Arts Festival" in 2005, they were hired by New Regency Pictures to write the film Bride Wars and landed a development deal with UPN to create a sitcom pilot.
Career
Raphael began her comedy career writing and performing with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) in New York and later in Los Angeles. Among her best known work at UCB, was the long-running sketch show Rode Hard and Put Away Wet, written and performed alongside her comedy partner and best friend Casey Wilson; the stage show ran from 2003 to 2006 in New York and Los Angeles and was an official selection at 2005's US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The two women, who had first met in a clowning class during their freshman year at NYU, went on to win the ECNY Award for "Best Comedy Duo" in 2005. They also performed as members of the UCB improv teams "Mr. and Mrs. All-Star", "Sentimental Lady", and "Hey, Uncle Gary!". Raphael and Wilson's comedic partnership has since branched out into an active writing career in film and television, they co-wrote their first screenplay for the comedy Bride Wars, which they also appeared in with supporting roles, followed by landing a development deal with UPN in 2005 to create a half-hour comedy pilot and in 2007 they worked as writers and story editors on the Americanized version of Creature Comforts on CBS. They also continue to contribute comedic videos to the humor website Funny or Die.
As a film and television actress, Raphael has made guest appearances on shows such as Party Down, Happy Endings, Animal Practice, American Dad!, Kroll Show, Funny or Die Presents, Big Lake, Drunk History, Flight of the Conchords and currently recurs as Dr. Sadie on the FOX sitcom New Girl. She has appeared in films such as Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Girl Most Likely, Unfinished Business, Going the Distance, Zodiac, Bachelorette, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Year One. In 2010, Raphael co-starred as Barb in the improvised comedy series Players on Spike TV. She also starred in all three seasons of the web series Burning Love alongside Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black.
Raphael continues to collaborate with writing partner Casey Wilson on scripts for film and television, they have worked on numerous script rewrites for films in development, such as projects with Anna Faris and America Ferrera attached to star. As writer-performers, Raphael and Wilson also continue to generate material for themselves. They most recently wrote and starred together in the raunchy female buddy comedy Ass Backwards, which also co-stars Alicia Silverstone, Jon Cryer, Vincent D'Onofrio, Paul Scheer, and Bob Odenkirk. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2013. Raphael and Wilson are currently writing a second film to star in together to be produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's company Gary Sanchez Productions.
In February 2010, Raphael joined the rotating cast of the Off-Broadway play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (written by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron) at the Westside Theatre in Manhattan. Raphael and Casey Wilson have created their newest comedic stage show The Realest Real Housewives, which they star in alongside Jessica St. Clair, Melissa Rauch, Danielle Schneider and Morgan Walsh. The show began running monthly at the Los Angeles Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 2011. Raphael also contributed short stories to the 2010 book "Worst Laid Plans", based on the long-running stage show, which she frequently performed in.
Raphael co-starred in the Adult Swim action-comedy series NTSF:SD:SUV::, which aired for three seasons from 2011 to 2013. She currently co-hosts with her husband, Paul Scheer, the movie discussion podcast How Did This Get Made? along with comedian Jason Mantzoukas. The podcast is a roundtable discussion where Scheer, Raphael, Mantzoukas and other special guests; "try make sense of movies that make absolutely no sense".
Personal life
Raphael lives in Los Angeles and is married to actor-comedian Paul Scheer. They began dating in January 2004, after first meeting when the artistic director of Manhattan's Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre brought Scheer in to offer advice to Raphael and her comedy partner Casey Wilson on making improvements to their UCB two-woman sketch show. They moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2005. In October 2009, they married at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Their son, August "Gus" Scheer, was born on April 30, 2014. In March 2016, the couple announced that they were expecting their second child.
Her older sister Deanna Raphael is the co-host of the pop-culture based podcast OMFG! on the Earwolf podcasting network.
Other
Raphael and comedian Kulap Vilaysack are the founders and directors of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (UCB) associated "UCB Corps" community, a volunteer charity organization. Raphael and Vilaysack organize charity events and projects to help improve the community, with the help of volunteers and other UCB performers "who want to make our world a better place".
Filmography
Film
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2006 | The Wedding Weekend | Ted's Tammy | |
Caffeine: A Love Story | June | Short film | |
2007 | Zodiac | Mrs. Toschi | |
2008 | Forgetting Sarah Marshall | Ann at the Bar | |
2009 | Bride Wars | Amanda | Screenwriter |
Year One | Maya | ||
2010 | The Dry Land | Susie | |
Cried Suicide | Jessica | Short film | |
Going the Distance | Karen | ||
Weakness | Elizabeth | ||
2012 | Bachelorette | Cool Stripper | |
Girl Most Likely | Dara | ||
2013 | Ass Backwards | Kate Fenner | Screenwriter, executive producer |
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues | Chani's Boss | ||
2015 | Unfinished Business | Susan Truckman | |
Bad Night | Goldstein | ||
2016 | The Masterpiece | Robyn Paris | Filming |
Television
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2002 | Ed | Student | 1 episode |
2007 | Derek and Simon: The Show | June | 1 episode |
Flight of the Conchords | Felicia | 1 episode | |
The Very Funny Show | Cast Member | Series regular | |
2007-2008 | Human Giant | Various | 4 episodes |
2009 | In the Motherhood | Liz | 1 episode |
2010 | Party Down | Danielle Lugozshe | 2 episodes |
Players | Barb Tolan | Series regular | |
Big Lake | Miss Hauser | 1 episode | |
2010-2011 | Funny or Die Presents | Various Characters | 5 episode |
2011 | Happy Endings | Melinda Shershow | 1 episode |
Free Agents | Julie | 1 episode | |
2011-2013 | NTSF:SD:SUV:: | Piper Ferguson | Series regular |
2011-2015 | American Dad! | Various Voices | 4 episodes |
2012 | Animal Practice | Dr. Jill Leiter | 3 episodes |
2012-2013 | Burning Love | Julie Gristlewhite | Series regular |
Whitney | Chloe | 2 episodes | |
2012-2014 | New Girl | Sadie | Season 1-3 (recurring; 6 episodes) |
2013 | Drunk History | Isabella Stewart Gardner | 1 episode |
Kroll Show | Dina Bludd | 1 episode | |
Inside Amy Schumer | Mandy | 1 episode | |
Parks and Recreation | Tynnyfer | 1 episode | |
2014 | The Greatest Event in Television History | Emily Scott | 1 episode |
The Mason Twins | Pender Mason | Star, Creator, Executive Producer NBC sitcom pilot |
|
BoJack Horseman | Various voices | Episode: "Later" | |
The Birthday Boys | Barbara O'Shaughnessy | 1 episode | |
2014-2015 | The League | Pam | 2 episodes |
2015 | Marry Me | Molly | Episode: "Surprise Me" |
The Hotwives of Las Vegas | Jandice | Episode: "Old Friends, New Enemies" | |
2015-present | Grace and Frankie | Brianna Hanson | Series regular |
2016 | The Muppets | Lucy Royce | 2 episodes |
Lady Dynamite | Karen Grisham |
Charities
June Diane Raphael supports the following charitable cause: Parkinsons.