If you are not yet familiar with Lisa Gilroy, the chances are high that you actually are. The actress and comedian has quietly—and then all at once—cemented her status as a ubiquitous presence across the modern entertainment landscape. From standout television roles in critically acclaimed series like The Studio, Shrinking, the most recent season of The Paper, and Brothers, to unforgettable appearances on notable podcasts, cutting-edge comedy talk shows like Very Important People, and even a memorable interview circuit featuring Tom Cruise, Gilroy is everywhere.
What makes her rise so magnetic is her distinct brand of performance: she is truly a delight to watch, operating at a level of comedic intensity that is completely unhinged in the most fantastic way possible. Whether she is portraying an overly sexual human resources representative who perpetually misses the mark, stepping into the shoes of Matthew McConaughey’s no-nonsense campaign manager, or bringing a large, furry yellow demon to life with fangs and a pig nose, Gilroy commits fully to every single bit. In doing so, she has carved out a space for herself as the mastermind behind some of the funniest, most eccentric characters on television today.
Hailing from Alberta, Canada, the 37-year-old performer first made a name for herself through the channel that has become the launchpad for a new generation of rising comedians: TikTok. While concurrently putting in the grueling live improv hours on stage with renowned institutions like The Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles, Gilroy began uploading pandemic-era sketch videos. Focusing on hyper-specific high school archetypes and the universal awkwardness of menstruation, her sharp, absurdist clips quickly went viral. This digital momentum earned her a fiercely dedicated online following and, before long, paved the way for major television and streaming roles that showcased her theatrical chops to a broader audience.
In many ways, Gilroy is the spiritual inheritor of a distinct comedic lineage. Much like her own comedy idols—icons like Kristen Wiig, Jim Carrey, and Molly Shannon—her artistic sweet spot lies firmly in the realm of the absurd. It is perhaps this fearless embrace of the ridiculous that explains why audiences simply cannot get enough of her work, transforming virtually everything she touches into comedy gold.
Looking back on her journey, Gilroy’s path to comedy began long before viral videos or Los Angeles improv stages. Reflecting on her earliest memories of making people laugh, she describes herself as having been a "classic child maniac" who engaged in the typical theatrics of imaginative youth. She recalls spending hours making up her own musicals, flopping dramatically around the living room carpet, and quoting lines from Austin Powers and Oliver Twist. Looking back, she notes that it may have been the sheer, unbridled exertion of physical energy that initially cracked a smile on people’s faces.
That theatrical impulse soon found a more structured outlet during a seventh-grade drama class production of a play titled The Godmother—a children’s parody of The Godfather. While she recalls no mobster tropes involving horse heads or car bombs, the production featured a scene in which her character, an innkeeper, was vaguely threatened by mafia members. To her surprise and delight, the moment elicited massive laughs from the adults in the audience. Although she confesses she understood neither the jokes in the script nor why they were landing, the visceral thrill of the reaction was intoxicating.
"I was like, ‘Uh-oh, this feels amazing,’" Gilroy recalls. Coupled with the sheer satisfaction of being allowed to slam one of the classroom’s free-standing prop doors extraordinarily hard during the performance, the experience sealed her fate. She even won a drama award that year, a development that genuinely shocked her given that her drama teacher frequently sent her out into the hallway to reflect on her self-described "listening problems."
As she matured, those early comedic instincts were heavily shaped by the boundary-pushing performers she watched on screen. When asked about the comedic performances that left an indelible mark on her early on, Gilroy rattles off a list of trailblazers who validated her own eccentricities. Every weird and rude thing Sarah Silverman did in The Sarah Silverman Program meant the world to her. She vividly remembers watching Kristen Wiig aggressively shove potato chips into her mouth on Saturday Night Live, Jim Carrey going completely unhinged in a courtroom in Liar Liar, and Molly Shannon commanding the screen in Superstar. For Gilroy, witnessing adults being celebrated for embracing total insanity was a profound revelation, especially coming from a time when she frequently found herself in trouble at the family dinner table for displaying those exact same traits.
Today, that same fearless energy fuels an incredible television run that has seen her land a succession of high-profile projects. When asked about her philosophy for picking projects amid her current streak of appearing in The Studio, Shrinking, The Paper, and Brothers, Gilroy laughs at the notion of "picking" at all. Instead, she feels less like a calculated strategist and more like someone continuously winning small lotteries.
Admitting that she has been exceptionally lucky, Gilroy explains that she is currently trying to develop an actual sense of curation rather than reflexively saying yes to every single opportunity that comes her way. Comparing herself to a dog loose in a butterfly sanctuary, she admits to feeling frequently overstimulated by the sheer volume of exciting creative avenues to pursue.
To help navigate these choices, a colleague once introduced her to a helpful framework known as the "three Ps": profit, prestige, and personal gain. According to this philosophy, any project a creator undertakes should ideally check at least two of those three boxes. Reflecting on the trajectory of her career, Gilroy notes that for the first ten years of her working life, the profit margin effectively did not exist. Every single endeavor—from unpaid improv shows and commercial auditions to independent podcasts—was entirely driven by prestige and personal fulfillment. While she acknowledges the need to pace herself now to avoid the fast track to burnout, she remains endearingly self-deprecating about her strategic abilities, noting with a laugh that she is still somewhat bad at turning things down.
That willingness to dive headfirst into new creative challenges is perhaps best exemplified by her role in the Apple TV series Brothers, where she plays a sharp-tongued campaign manager hired by Matthew McConaughey’s character, who is running for governor. Developing the character presented a unique hurdle for an actress who freely admits she is not famously a professional person in her day-to-day life. Having never held a traditional corporate job outside of the service industry and performing free improv, channeling a high-powered professional woman required looking to comedic role models who mastered the art of high-status absurdity.
For inspiration, Gilroy looked directly to Jane Lynch, whose performances in projects like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Glee established a blueprint for playing authority figures who are, in her words, "criminally insane." Lynch’s secret, Gilroy notes, lies in delivering wildly inappropriate dialogue with such unwavering confidence that observers do not fully register the chaos until she has already left the room and the damage is done. Beyond drawing from Lynch’s energy, Gilroy also credits showrunner Lee Eisenberg—with whom she previously collaborated on Jury Duty—for fostering an environment of trust. Knowing Eisenberg’s deep appreciation for improv, he simply let Gilroy "go hog wild" on set, a creative freedom she deeply relishes and appreciates.
Going toe-to-toe with a literal Academy Award winner like Matthew McConaughey added an entirely surreal dimension to the production experience. Gilroy describes the sensation of working alongside McConaughey as akin to living inside a simulation or waking up from a coma where the brain is desperately trying to send messages through a dream state. Spending time on set, she humorously admits to actively looking for hidden signs that she was trapped in a sci-fi scenario.
Despite the intimidation factor, Gilroy was struck by McConaughey’s genuine talent, specifically his ability to process and respond to any improvisational curveball she threw his way in a manner that felt entirely normal, grounded, and truthful. Off-camera, the dynamic duo spent their downtime bonding over trivia and riddles. Gilroy recalls testing the Oscar winner with a historically accurate riddle about why Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin failed to high-five each other on the moon. While McConaughey initially cycled through guesses involving gravity mechanics and specialized astronaut gear, he eventually arrived at the correct answer: the high-five simply had not been invented yet, having only emerged in the 1970s. Gilroy jokes that she expected him to solve it much faster given his starring role in the space epic Interstellar, though she concedes it took him a normal amount of time to figure it out.
When asked about her metaphorical place within the Hollywood ecosystem—specifically regarding which public figures she might consider her ideal entertainment siblings—Gilroy shares a mix of physical and tonal comparisons. She notes that people frequently tell her she resembles Kristen Bell, Nikki Glaser, and Alix Earle, a compliment that fills her with glee as she jokingly groups herself with her fellow "strong-jawed sisters with kind of crossed eyes."
When shifting the focus to creative vibe, however, she points to comedian Mae Martin as her artistic counterpart, describing them as a weird little brother with whom she shares a deep comedic sensibility and a mutual love of collaboration. She also expresses immense admiration for Meg Stalter, noting that watching Stalter have an absolute blast making weird and wonderful art makes the prospect of a hypothetical sisterhood an honor. As for her real-life sister, Miranda, Gilroy insists that if Hollywood ever needed to cast a biographical film adaptation, the only appropriate choice would be Jessica Rabbit, because there is simply no one cooler or hotter.
Gilroy’s reflections on her career also touch on the evolution of her personal relationship with fashion, a domain she now navigates with newfound confidence. Playing such a diverse array of eccentric characters has allowed her to view wardrobe selection as a vital, joyful extension of the creative process. This stands in stark contrast to her early years in the industry, where she spent countless commercial auditions playing the "completely neutral woman" trapped in the exact same light-beige cardigan for seven years.
Historically, dressing herself for real-world events held very little appeal for Gilroy. She confesses that she used to genuinely hate the process of getting dressed up, entering social functions with the singular goal of becoming invisible to the naked eye. Whether searching for a dress that would allow her to blend seamlessly into the background as a generic "wedding guest" or trying to pass as an uncontroversial "award-show attendee," her primary objective was to avoid standing out at all costs. She humorously notes that she only got her ears pierced two years ago.
Now in her thirties, however, Gilroy has finally unlocked the secret to having fun with clothes, attributing the shift to personal growth. She admits she used to harbor a lingering fear that wearing something genuinely bold—such as a pair of heels or a crop top—would prompt everyone in the room to mock her for trying out a fresh look from Milan. Experience, fortunately, has proven otherwise, teaching her that nobody actually cares outside of close friends who will enthusiastically scream and validate her outfit choices.
That newfound appreciation for style directly informs the characters she brings to life on screen. When asked which of her past roles aligns most closely with her personal aesthetic, she points directly to her recent run of distinct personas: a sexually active nerd in The Paper, a sharp political Barbie in Brothers, and a half-bug, half-exterminator monster in Twisted Metal. Of the group, the sexually active nerd hits closest to home. Crafting the wardrobe for her human resources character on The Paper was particularly rewarding, as she deliberately leaned into styling choices that made the character look as though she was desperately attempting to exude sex appeal while continually missing the mark—a vibe Gilroy admits she can heavily relate to.
That same appreciation for controlled chaos is evident when discussing her work on the comedy series Very Important People, where she debuted Spencer, a large yellow monster hailing from the underworld. Gilroy cherishes the role for letting her lean into physical comedy complete with small fangs and a pig nose, noting that she felt entirely at home within the bizarre concept. She praises the show’s format for offering the ultimate comedic freedom: one-and-done performances that allow an artist to create disposable characters, throw them away, keep the stakes low, and maximize the fun.
As for what currently tickles her funny bone, Gilroy points toward contemporary British television, citing shows like Such Brave Girls and Taskmaster as comfort viewing that feels like home due to its structural proximity to Canadian humor. In a moment of mock reluctance, she also confesses to a recent rewatch of the Jackass films, expressing genuine admiration for a group of men willing to put their bodies—and specifically their physical anatomy—on the line for the sake of slapstick laughter.
Looking ahead to the next few years, Gilroy’s ambitions remain rooted in her love for the unexpected. When asked about her ultimate dream projects, her answer is as wonderfully unconventional as her career thus far: she simply wants to dive into unscripted experiments, play even stranger characters, transform into a puppet, embrace total insanity, and helm her own sketch show.
Audiences can currently catch Gilroy’s latest antics in new episodes of Brothers, which are streaming now on Apple TV.
