Alyson Lee Hannigan was born in Washington DC, USA, on March 24th, 1974. She pretty much always knew it was an actor's life for her, and started her career at the age of 4 in Atlanta, doing commercials. National ads followed, including McDonalds, Mylanta, Oreo cookies and Six Flags Amusement Parks.
In 1985, at the age of eleven, she moved to Los Angeles in search of stardom, and her big break came in 1988, when she landed the part of Jessie Mills, Dan Aykroyd's dughter in the movie, "My Stepmother Is An Alien", also starring Kim Basinger. Also featuring in that film, as Fred Glass, Jessie's boyfriend, was a certain Seth Green, who would continue to crop up in Aly's career.
Later that year, the 14 year old Alyson appered in an episode of "Roseanne", 'Like, A New Job'(I wonder if Glenn Quinn["Angel"'s Doyle] was in that episode?), and the following year became a regular on sitcom "Free Spirit", an episode of which again featured Seth Green. Aly was also to be seen in "Touched By An Angel", and two episodes('The Dance' and 'Hot Ticket') of "Almost Home", as Sam, the lead character Gregory's girlfriend.
She showed up in a 1992 episode of "Picket Fences"('To Forgive Is Divine') and did one episode of the series "George" in 1993.
Of course, in 1997, she was the second casting(after Riff Regan in the pilot) of Willow Rosenberg in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Best friend of the Slayer(Sarah Michelle Gellar), long time secret admirer of Xander Harris(Nicholas Brendon), and girlfriend [for over a season and a half, at least] of werewolf/guitarist Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne(played, once again, by Seth Green).
Aly has also, of course, made a number of movies. As well as "My Stepmother Is An Alien", she played Lucy in "Dead Man On Campus"(1998), and infamously, Michelle in the hilarious "American Pie"(1999).
She spoofed a number of movie moments(including Buffy co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar's kiss with Selma Blair) in a series of pre-filmed inserts for the 1999 MTV Movie Awards, as did, funnily enough, Seth Green in Scott Evil mode.
More movies have followed, including "Boys and Girls"(2000), with Sarah Michelle Gellar's real life boyfriend Freddie Prinze Jr and "American Pie" co-star Jason Biggs, and this year should finally see the release of "Beyond City Limits", in which she stars with former Buffy co-star and current Angel star, Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce), who also happens to be Alyson's real life boyfriend.
Alyson continues to enjoy her time on Buffy, which is currently drawing to the end of it's fifth season on the WB network in the states, before it makes the switch to UPN in the autumn. She should also be providing the voice of Willow in the new Buffy animated series, which could air as early as February 2002, and this month was voted the 10th sexiest woman in the world, one place ahesd of Sarah Michalle Gellar. Way to go Aly!
"I wouldn't trade this part [on Buffy] for anything." |
