Taissa Farmiga

Taissa Farmiga is an American actress best known for her collaborations with Ryan Murphy on the anthology series “American Horror Story” and for her role as Gladys Russell in HBO’s period drama “The Gilded Age.” Born on 17 August 1994 in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, the youngest of seven children in a family of Ukrainian descent, she is the younger sister of the actress Vera Farmiga.

She came to acting almost by chance, appearing in her sister’s directorial debut, “Higher Ground” (2011), while still a teenager. That same year she landed the role of Violet Harmon in the first season of “American Horror Story: Murder House” at her first professional audition, a breakthrough that launched her screen career.

Farmiga went on to appear in several further “American Horror Story” seasons — “Coven,” “Roanoke” and “Apocalypse” — establishing herself as one of the show’s recurring ensemble players. On film she featured in Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” (2013), the horror-comedy “The Final Girls” (2015) and the supernatural franchise entries “The Nun” (2018) and “The Nun II” (2023) as Sister Irene.

Since 2022 she has played the strong-willed heiress Gladys Russell in “The Gilded Age,” part of an ensemble that received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination in 2023. She has also lent her voice to the superhero Raven across several films in the DC Animated Movie Universe, extending her range into animation.

Praised for a screen presence that balances vulnerability and quiet steel, Farmiga has moved comfortably between horror, prestige drama and independent film. Now based in Los Angeles, she remains a fixture of American genre and period television while continuing to take on film roles, and she is frequently associated with the modern wave of horror stars who broke through on “American Horror Story.”

Beyond her franchise and television work, Farmiga has taken on independent projects that showcase a more understated register, and critics have often highlighted the naturalism she brings to roles first written as archetypes. With a career now spanning more than a decade, she continues to balance mainstream genre films with character-driven drama on both the big and small screen.