Gayle Rankin

Gayle Rankin made her screen debut in 2012 with appearances in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and My America. That same year, she appeared in the film Warfield and made her New York stage debut in Tribes at Barrow Street Theatre. Her early film work also includes Frank the Bastard (2013), the television pilot The Missionary (2013), the short films It Goes Quiet (2013), The Meeting (2014), Girl Wakes Up (2015), and Buzzer (2015), as well as The Passing Season (2016).

On stage, Rankin appeared as Fräulein Kost in the 2014 Broadway revival of Cabaret, Charlotte in The Mystery of Love and Sex (2015) at Lincoln Center Theater, Bianca Minola in The Taming of the Shrew (2016) at the Delacorte Theatre, and Ophelia/Second Gravedigger in Hamlet (2017) at The Public Theater.

Rankin gained wider recognition as Sheila the She-Wolf in the Netflix series GLOW (2017–2019). During that period, she also appeared in the films The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), The Greatest Showman (2017), Irreplaceable You (2018), In a Relationship (2018), Her Smell (2018), Health to the King (2018), Blow the Man Down (2019), The Climb (2019), and the short film Jane (2019).

She went on to portray Emily Dodson in Perry Mason (2020), Maya in Worth (2020), Margaret Weylan in Kindred (2022), Riley in Men (2022), and Ruthie in Bad Things (2023). Since 2024, she has starred as Alys Rivers in House of the Dragon and has also appeared in the miniseries The Listeners (2024). Her upcoming film credits include The Incomer (2026) and The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford (2026).

Rankin returned to Broadway as Sally Bowles in the 2024 revival of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club opposite Eddie Redmayne, earning nominations for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical, and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance. She also received ensemble nominations for GLOW at the Actor Awards in 2018 and 2019.