Alyson Lee Hannigan (born March 24, 1974) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Willow Rosenberg on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Flaherty in three American Pie films and Lily Aldrin on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.
Hannigan was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Emilie Posner, a real estate agent, and Al Hannigan, a truck driver. Hannigan is of Irish descent on her father's side and Jewish on her mother's. Her parents divorced a year after her birth and she was raised mostly by her mother in Atlanta.[citation needed]
Hannigan has dated Ginger Fish of Marilyn Manson. She married actor Alexis Denisof (who played Wesley Wyndam-Pryce in the Buffy/Angel franchise) at Two Bunch Palms Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California on October 11, 2003. They bought a house together in Santa Monica, California. Their daughter, Satyana Marie Denisof, was born six years later at home on Hannigan's 35th birthday, on March 24, 2009.
Although Hannigan had appeared in an industrial film for "Active Parenting" as a baby, as well as having starred in a commercial for the Duncan Hines cookie mix in 1978, it was not until 1985, when she moved to Los Angeles, California, that she formally began her acting career. Living with her mother and attending North Hollywood High School, she successfully auditioned for agents while visiting her father in Santa Barbara. After attending North Hollywood High School she attended California State University, Northridge.[citation needed]
Hannigan's first major film role was in My Stepmother Is an Alien, a science fiction comedy released in 1988; one of her co-stars in the film was actor Seth Green, who would later join her in the regular cast of Buffy as her on-screen boyfriend. Then in 1989, her first regular role on a TV series came when she was cast in the short-lived ABC sitcom Free Spirit. Throughout most of the early-1990s, she appeared in commercials.[citation needed]
In early 2004, Hannigan made her West End debut, starring in a stage adaptation of When Harry Met Sally... at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, opposite Luke Perry.[citation needed]
In February 2006, Hannigan starred as Julia Jones in Date Movie, a parody of romantic comedies. Alyson also was a guest star on the ABC animated sitcom The Goode Family in 2009.
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