Malin Maria Åkerman (born 12 May 1978) is a Swedish and American actress. She portrays Lara Axelrod in Showtime series Billions from 2016 to 2019.
Biography[]
Åkerman was born in Stockholm on 12 May 1978, the daughter of aerobics teacher and part-time model Pia (née Sundström) and insurance broker Magnus Åkerman. When she was two years old, the family moved to Canada after her father was offered a job there. Four years later her parents divorced and her father moved back to Sweden. She was raised as a Buddhist. After her mother remarried, they moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Her mother divorced again in Åkerman's teenage years. Åkerman attended many different schools, including Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School in St. Catharines, Ontario. She visited her father in Falsterbo during school breaks and talked to him regularly over the phone. She cites her parents as "supportive, positive influences" in her life.
Åkerman's mother introduced her to modelling while she was still in primary school. At age 16, she was discovered by Ford Models in a shopping mall in St. Catharines. She was signed to the agency and later won a contract with skincare company Noxzema. She soon moved to Toronto while attending North Toronto Collegiate Institute and later Dante Alighieri Academy. At the age of 18, inspired by the "helplessness" she sometimes felt during her childhood, she decided to become a child psychologist. She supported her education by modelling for television commercials and catalogue layouts. While studying for a year at York University in Toronto, she was simultaneously offered guest roles on television as a result of her exposure in commercials. She saw the acting roles as further opportunities to pay for her education but found herself enjoying acting, and later dropped out of school to become an actress. She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 to pursue her acting career full-time.
Career[]
She had several small television and film parts in both Canadian and American productions, including The Utopian Society (2003) and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Following a supporting role on the HBO mockumentary sitcom The Comeback (2005), she gained her first co-starring roles in the romantic comedy films The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and 27 Dresses (2008). She had an uncredited role in the science fiction film, The Invasion (2007). She played the female lead in Watchmen (2009) as Silk Spectre II, a role for which she was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2009, Åkerman had supporting and starring roles in the romantic comedies The Proposal and Couples Retreat. From 2010 to 2016, she starred on the Adult Swim comedy series Childrens Hospital. In 2012, she co-starred in the comedy Wanderlust and the musical film Rock of Ages. She had her first lead television role with the short-lived ABC comedy series Trophy Wife (2013–2014). She later co-starred in the film I'll See You in My Dreams (2015) and the action film Rampage (2018).