Carla Gallo is an American actress, whose claim to fame was her roles in Fox’s TV shows, “Undeclared” as Lizzie Exley and “Bones” as Daisy Wick.
Early Life and Family
Carla Paolina Gallo was born on 24 June 1975, in Brooklyn, New York City, USA to parents Samuel Eugene Gallo and Mildred Josephine Coiro. While both of her parents were born in Ohio, her grandparents on both sides were Italian immigrants, and her maternal great-grandparents were of German descent, so she and her older sister were raised in a diverse multi-ethnicity household.
Carla Gallo is 41 today. She was Paula in Neighbors, Beth in Mission: Impossible III, and had a role in Super Bad.
Posted by Famous Birthdays on Friday, June 24, 2016
Even as a young kid, she had shown interest in performing on stage, and while her mother wasn’t so keen on it due to Carla’s inability to memorize lines as quickly as her peers, she was adamant in joining a theatre group. Fortunately, the grade school theatre director was able to convince her mother to let Carla play the role of Cinderella in the school play, “The Final Dress Rehearsal.’’ From then on, she knew that she’d pursue acting as a career.
Education
For grade school, she attended the Berkeley Carroll Street School, and subsequently matriculated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan, New York in 1993, and later on she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre from Cornell University.
Career
First Steps
Not everyone knew that she was in the movie “Spanking the Money,” a 1994 black comedy directed by David O. Russell, which was a commercial success, earning almost $1.5 million against a budget of $200,000; she filmed it when she was in college.
After college, she auditioned for numerous roles, and filmed pilot episodes, but they all failed to air. She debuted on television playing a minor role via the legal drama series, “Law & Order” in 1999, and a year after that she was in the hospital drama series “ER,” both aired on NBC channel.
Further Success
After playing these minor roles, in 2001 Carla was given her first opportunity to be a series regular, with Jay Baruchel and Charlie Hunnam in the American sitcom “Undeclared” that aired on Fox network. She played Lizzie Exley, a neurotic college freshman for two seasons.
After the show was cancelled in 2003, she jumped right into another series – “Carnivàle” – a period drama set in the 1930’s, aired on HBO. She played the role of Libby Dreifuss and was part of the regular cast for two seasons. with Nick Stahl, Clancy Brown and Amy Madigan.
Carla went back to the big screen after a great experience with television, and was part of Judd Apatow’s directorial debut movie, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd.
It was a commercial success with gross earnings of $178 million against a budget of $26 million. In 2006 she had a minor role in the box office hit movie “Mission Impossible III,” with Tom Cruise and directed by J.J. Abrams.
While doing movies, she also made several guest appearances in popular TV series, including “Crossing Jordan,” “House,” and “NCIS,”ande had a recurring role in “Californication” for one season in 2008, appearing in 11 episodes.
After the writers’ strike in Hollywood Carla was broke, but fortunately she was offered a longer and significant recurring role in the crime-procedural series “Bones,” with Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz.
She was cast as Daisy Wick, an intern in the Jeffersonian Institute, for the fourth season in 2008, and lasted up to the final season in 2017, with 39 episodic appearances.
While Carla didn’t become a major player in the world of entertainment, she had continuous work as part of the supporting cast in many TV series. Carla even reprised her role as Daisy Wick from “Bones” in another police procedural drama series, “Rosewood,” when drama crossovers became a trend back then. She also landed recurring roles in “Men of Certain Age” in eight episodes (2009-2011), “Burning Love” in four episodes (2012-2013), and “Blue” in five episodes (2013-2014).
Other notable TV guest appearances from 2011 to 2017 were in “2 Broke Girls” with Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings (2011); “Children’s Hospital,” a parody sitcom about other hospital dramas with Rob Corddry and Lake Bell (2013); and “Future Man,” a comedy series aired on Hulu (2017).
Her movie career didn’t flourish as compared to her TV career, but she was involved in several movies, including “Neighbors,” a comedy with Seth Rogen and Zac Efron in 2014, and due to its commercial success, reprised her role in the sequel, “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.”
EXCLUSIVE: NEIGHBORS actress @CarlaPGallo set to return as Rose Byrne's pal in NEIGHBORS 2. http://t.co/YqrnNppQyO pic.twitter.com/aA0AgatLzU
— TheWrap (@TheWrap) August 4, 2015
Carla was then in “Little Evil,” a supernatural comedy with Adam Scott and Evangeline Lily in 2017 that aired on Netflix, followed by appearing in “Room For Rent,” a Canadian comedy with Brett Gelman and Mark Little, an official entry into the Atlantic Film Festival and San Diego International Film Festival in 2017, and was invited to the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2018.
Personal Life
Carla married longtime boyfriend Mark Satterthwaite on 8 October 2017, at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu, California. The couple have two daughters from before they married: Ellie born in 2014, and the younger born in May of 2017.
She is a very protective mother, and after growing up in New York with men brushing their privates on her legs during rush hour in the subway, she said that she wouldn’t let her daughters go anywhere without her.
Her husband is a Canadian screenwriter and producer, who is best known for his work on the Canadian TV series’ including “Gary and His Demons,” “Cupcake & Dino: General Services,” and TV Specials such as “Gemini Awards,” and “Much Music Video Music Awards.”
Previous Relationship
Carla previously dated actor Nick Stahl for four years from January 2003 up to 2007. They met on the set of the TV series, “Carnivàle,” and would be seen together publicly attending red carpet events and movie premieres.
Interesting Facts
- Her best friend, actress Sarah Paulson, urged her to move to Los Angeles to pursue TV acting seriously after graduation.
- She worked as an Internet “receptionist” for a former Playboy model, answering fan mails, during the pre-social media apps era.
- She prefers to do comedy, and would spend time working on ideas instead of doing drama, which she finds it stressful, but she can do both.
- The bravest thing she did for a role was getting naked, and wouldn’t do it again for any reason.
- She started writing screenplays, but nothing has yet been aired.
Appearance
She is 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, weighs around 120lbs (54kgs), and her vital statistics are 35-25-35. She is of Italian-German descent, with long black hair and brown eyes.
Net worth
Authoritative sources estimate Carla’s net worth to be over $2 million, as of June 2020.
