Selma Blair

Selma Blair, born Selma Blair Beitner on June 23, 1972, is an American actress. She is widely recognized for her roles in feature films such as Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing, and the Hellboy franchise. Throughout her career, she has appeared in a broad range of mainstream and independent film productions, television series, and theatrical projects.

Blair was born in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Michigan, as the youngest of four daughters of lawyers Molly Ann and Elliot I. Beitner. Raised with a Jewish upbringing, she formally converted to Judaism in the second grade. After attending Hillel Day School and Cranbrook Kingswood, she studied photography at Kalamazoo College from 1990 to 1992. She subsequently moved to New York City to attend New York University while taking acting classes at the Stella Adler Conservatory, the Column Theater, and Stonestreet Studios. She later transferred to the University of Michigan, graduating magna cum laude in 1994 with a triple major in photography, psychology, and English.

Blair began her professional acting career in television and film during the 1990s. After numerous auditions, she landed her first professional television role in a 1995 episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete, followed by film appearances in The Broccoli Theory and In & Out. Her breakthrough arrived in 1999 with the coming-of-age drama Cruel Intentions, which earned her an MTV Movie Award win for Best Kiss and a nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. That same year, she starred in the television series Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane.

Following her breakthrough, Blair co-starred in the 2001 comedy hit Legally Blonde and received critical acclaim for her dramatic role in Storytelling, before appearing in the 2002 comedy The Sweetest Thing. In 2004, she portrayed the pyrokinetic superhero Liz Sherman in Guillermo del Toro's blockbuster fantasy film Hellboy, later reprising the role in the 2008 sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Her work during this period also included starring roles in John Waters' A Dirty Shame, the independent drama The Poker House, and the NBC sitcom Kath & Kim.

In 2009, Blair performed the lead role in the play Gruesome Playground Injuries. The following year, she narrated the audiobook for Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, receiving a 2011 Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children. She returned to television in 2012 as Dr. Kate Wales in FX's Anger Management, appearing in 53 episodes. Blair later featured in the miniseries American Crime Story: The People vs. O. J. Simpson in 2016 and held a recurring role on the Netflix series Another Life from 2019 to 2021.

In 2018, Blair was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and subsequently became active in sharing her experience and advocating for health causes. Her journey was documented in the 2021 film Introducing, Selma Blair, and her memoir, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up, was published in 2022. That same year, she competed on season 31 of Dancing with the Stars, became Chief Creative Officer of Guide Beauty, and was selected as one of the BBC's 100 Women. In late 2024, Blair entered production for the film project Stay Forte.