Téa Leoni

Actor

Name at birth: Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni

After years of small roles in films and television, Téa Leoni hit it big as a reluctant paparazzo in the offbeat TV comedy series The Naked Truth (1995-98). She confirmed her comedic talents in the Ben Stiller movie Flirting With Disaster (1996) and then showed her dramatic chops in the disaster flick Deep Impact (1998, with Morgan Freeman. Blonde and leggy, adept at mixing sex and slapstick, Leoni has also played romantic leads and character roles in such films as The Family Man (2000, with Nicolas Cage), Jurassic Park III (2001), Spanglish (2004, starring Adam Sandler), and the yuppie caper remake Fun With Dick and Jane (2005, with Jim Carrey). She married X-Files star David Duchovny on 6 May 1997. She also co-starred in his directorial debut, the 2005 drama House of D.

Extra credit: Her first name is pronounced TAY-uh... Leoni and Duchovny have two children: a daughter Madelaine (b. 1999) and a son Kyd (b. 2002)... Leoni attended Sarah Lawrence University. Some sources say she graduated in 1988 (and the "Notable Alumnae" page on the school's own website has listed her as "Téa Leoni '88"), but the truth seems to be that she left school without graduating. A 2004 article in The Washington Post says she "Dropped out [and] bummed around the Virgin Islands" before taking up acting.