Alyson Hannigan

Biography of Alyson Hannigan

Alyson Lee Hannigan was born on March 24, 1974 in Washington, D.C. She is an American actress and presenter.

She was born to real estate agent Emilie Posner and truck driver Al Hannigan. Her mother is Jewish. Her father has Irish ancestry. Her parents divorced a year after her birth. She grew up primarily with her mother in Atlanta before moving to Los Angeles in 1985. She went to North Hollywood High School.

She first became known through the film My Stepmother is an Alien and later the series Buffy - The Vampire Slayer. In the series she played the witch and computer specialist Willow Rosenberg for seven years in a total of 144 episodes. She has also played Michelle in four American Pie films.

Hannigan went on to play the title character Sally in a stage version of Harry and Sally at a London theater and appeared as Trina Echolls in a few episodes of the 2005 series Veronica Mars. In autumn 2005 her new series How I Met Your Mother started in the USA, in which she played the educator Lily Aldrin alongside Jason Segel in 206 episodes until the series finale in 2014. In February 2006, she starred as Julia Jones in Date Movie, a romantic comedy parody.

Since July 2016, Hannigan has hosted the television show Penn & Teller: Fool Us, a talent show for magicians who challenge the successful magician and comedian duo Penn & Teller.

On October 11, 2003, in Desert Hot Springs, Hannigan married fellow actor Alexis Denisof, whom she met on the set of Buffy and who was a regular cast member on Angel. The couple have two daughters (* 2009, * 2012).