Early life

Weil was born in Passaic, New Jersey, into an acting family. She was raised in, and continues to practice, Reform Judaism.

Her parents, Lisa and Marc Weil, toured Europe with their comedy troupe, The Madhouse Company of London, with her in tow. Weil had aspirations of becoming an archaeologist in her younger years, because of the Indiana Jones film trilogy and a childhood crush on Harrison Ford. In 1984, at the age of seven, her family settled down in suburban Lansdale, Pennsylvania, where her parents continue to reside. Weil was a self-avowed average student in high school who focused more on her budding acting career than her studies.

Weil traveled frequently to New York City for professional auditions and acted in productions both off-Broadway and in Philadelphia's theatrical community before pursuing her film and television career. She is a 1995 graduate of the borough's North Penn High School, graduating in the summer rather than the regular term due to her acting commitments.

Career

Weil continues to be active in the Los Angeles theatrical community during hiatuses, is a regular performer at the Ojai Playwrights Conference in early August and radio dramas with L.A. Theatre Works, and still occasionally performs in live theater in Philadelphia and New York. She has acted with every member of her family; in 2004, she headlined with her father in a well-received community theater production of Proof at the Montgomery Theater in Souderton, Pennsylvania, just north of her adopted hometown of Lansdale. Her first ever television role in 1994, which was an episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete called "Yellow Fever", found her playing a bully alongside her mother Lisa, who played a teacher. Her younger sister Samantha shared the screen with Liza in Gilmore Girls' third season finale, "Those Are Strings, Pinocchio". Samantha Weil played a student named Bernadette (who was unrelated to Paris) making out a video yearbook entry in front of an impatient Paris, standing off to the side waiting to make her own.

An alumna of Columbia University, Weil received her first major feature film role co-starring with Kevin Bacon in Stir of Echoes. Before that role, she was the star of the 1998 independent film, Whatever, and her first film in 1996 was the short film, A Cure For Serpents, where she played the daughter of a mysophobic woman bringing home a boyfriend who was not as obsessive with cleanliness, and how the mother deals with the challenge. She has also done several other short and feature-length independent films, which include, Motel Jerusalem, Scar, and Lullaby, and shown interest in behind-the-camera work.

Weil was originally considered for the role of Rory Gilmore by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino before Alexis Bledel won the role; the character of Paris Geller was created especially for Weil.

Post Gilmore-Girls work

In 2006, Weil was featured in the horror themed short film, Grace, in which her character suffers a miscarriage, yet decides to carry the baby to term with terrifying results. The film, which also featured Brian Austin Green, premiered at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention on June 2, 2006, and is the basis for the 2009 feature film of the same name. She also had a minor role as a humane society worker in the Molly Shannon film Year of the Dog, and appeared as Doris Delay in the 2008 biographical film Neal Cassady, and as a reporter in the 2010 live-action rotoscoping film Mars, which is currently on the film festival circuit.

Weil also voiced a public service announcement which aired from June-October 2007 and aired on radio stations in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley in support of the American Diabetes Association's Step Up to Fight Diabetes staircase climb event, which took place in Center City Philadelphia on October 20, 2007.

In 2009 Weil returned to her roots as a regular guest star in various television series, including appearances in Eleventh Hour, CSI, In Plain Sight, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice and in February 2010 began a run as Dr. Glass on the popular Internet series Anyone But Me; series creator Susan Miller officiated at Weil's wedding to Paul Adelstein in 2006.

In March 2011 it was confirmed that Weil had signed for the role of Amanda Tanner, a White House aide, in ABC's Scandal, a series written and produced by Shonda Rhimes. It was picked up by the network for their midseason 2011-12 schedule on May 13, 2011, and Weil had a recurring role in the series' first season.

Weil played a supporting role in the horror film Smiley, and started 2013 as a recurring guest star in the last half of the only season of Amy Sherman-Palladino's ABC Family series Bunheads as Milly, the sister of Truly Stone. She is also a constant collaborator with independent film director Noah Buschel, having appeared in most of his work through the years and co-producing and starring in the 2014 low-cost project The Situation is Liquid.

Current work

At the end of February 2014, Weil was confirmed as signing on for another Shonda Rhimes series project, being cast as Bonnie Winterbottom, an assistant to Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) in the ABC series How to Get Away with Murder, which premiered at the start of the 2014-15 season on September 25, 2014. She will also reprise her role as Paris Geller for the one-season Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls, which is known as Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

Personal life

Weil married actor Paul Adelstein in a Reform Jewish ceremony in November 2006. They had previously known each other through theatrical projects. The two went on to appear together in three film projects, the 2007 short Order Up, the 2008 Gregory Dark-helmed Frenemy, and The Missing Person. She also appeared in an episode of Private Practice on February 24, 2011, although she and Adelstein had no scenes together.

Weil became pregnant in mid-2009 with her only child with Adelstein, a girl born on April 20, 2010. Weil filed for divorce from Adelstein in March 2016.

Weil is left-handed, and a natural brunette. Amy Sherman-Palladino has complimented Weil's skin as "the best she's ever seen in her life".

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1997	A Cure for Serpents	Lucy	short film
1998	Whatever	Anna Stockard
1999	Stir of Echoes	Debbie Kozac
2002	Dragonfly	Suicide Girl
2002	Lullaby	Rane
2006	Affair Game	Wife	short film
2006	Grace	Madeline	Original 2006 short film; role was recast for Jordan Ladd in latter 2009 feature-length film
2007	Year of the Dog	Trishelle
2007	Order Up	Hippie Patron	short film
2007	Neal Cassady	Doris Delay
2008	Mars	Jewel
2009	Frenemy	Norma	direct-to-DVD
2009	The Missing Person	Agent Chambers
2009	Us One Night	Rebecca	short film
2010	Metronome	Michelle	short film
2011	A Glove Story	Claire	short film
2012	Smiley	Dr. Jenkins

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	The Adventures of Pete & Pete	Bully Margie Corsell	Episodes: "Yellow Fever" and "35 Hours"
2000	The West Wing	Karen Larson	Episode: "Take out the Trash Day"
2000, 2002	ER	Samantha Sobriki	Episodes: "All in the Family", "The Fastest Year", "Beyond Repair"
2000-2007	Gilmore Girls	Paris Geller	Recurring (Season 1) Main Cast (Season 2-7): 127 episodes
2001	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Lara Todd	Episode: "Tangled"
2009	Eleventh Hour	Ashley Filmore	Episode: "H20"
2009	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Risa Varness	Episode: "A Space Oddity"
2009	In Plain Sight	Angela	Episode: "Gilted Lily"
2009	Grey's Anatomy	Allison Clark	Episode: "Here's to Future Days"
2010	Anyone But Me	Dr. Glass	web series
2011	Private Practice	Andi	Episode: "Two Steps Back"
2012	Scandal	Amanda Tanner	Recurring role, 6 episodes
2013	Bunheads	Milly Stone	Recurring role, 6 episodes
2014-present	How to Get Away with Murder	Bonnie Winterbottom	Series regular
2016	Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life	Paris Geller	TBD

[ Source: Wikipedia ]