Maria Bamford

Maria Bamford (born September 3, 1970) is an American actress and stand-up comedian.

Her work often uses self-deprecating and dark topics, including her dysfunctional family, depression, anxiety, suicide, and mental illness.

In 1992, she transferred to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland at the start of her junior year.

She became the first female member of the college's improvised comedy group, The Improverts.

After a year in Scotland, she transferred back to her home state and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.

She began stand-up comedy in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at age 19, at Stevie Ray's Comedy Cabaret.

Bamford has been in many movies and television shows, including cartoon voices.

She was the voice of Shriek DuBois in Nickelodeon's CatDog, a wide selection of secondary characters in Cartoon Network's Adventure Time, and Mrs. Botsford, Violet, and Leslie on the PBS educational series WordGirl.

She does impersonations, including her mother and her agent.

Her stand-up comedy often takes the form of vignettes rather than the standard setup-and-punchline format.

Bamford was featured in the documentary series The Comedians of Comedy on Comedy Central and Showtime, and appears in short skits titled The Maria Bamford Show, broadcast on the website Super Deluxe.

She appears on the comedy compilation CD Comedy Death-Ray.

One of her first feature films is Lucky Numbers (2000), and she voiced characters on many animated shows, including Shriek on CatDog, and many more on American Dad!, Ugly Americans, Adventure Time, and BoJack Horseman.

Her film work includes Stuart Little 2 (2002), Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure (2003), Barnyard (2006), Heckler (2007), and Hell and Back (2015).

She voiced Talking Ginger and Talking Becca in the Talking Tom & Friends web series.

Her first comedy album and tour was The Burning Bridges Tour (2003), followed by eight more albums and specials.

Her album Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome, produced by Comedy Central Records, was released in April 2009 and includes a DVD containing The Maria Bamford Show episodes.

During the Christmas 2009–2010 shopping seasons, she was featured in a series of Target commercials, portraying an overachieving shopper determined to be first in line.

For Christmas 2009, she released a free stand-up special online as a gift to her fans.

While working in voice-over shows and advertisements in Los Angeles, she was hospitalized three times over the course of 18 months for nervous breakdowns.

She commented on the hospital visits by saying "it was the responsible thing to do" after she felt "suicidal" and "dispirited".

Her live television work began in Louie (2012), Arrested Development (2013–2019), WordGirl (2007–2015), Big Mouth (2017–present), Flatbush Misdemeanors (2021-2022), and Human Resources (2022–2023).

In 2012 she released The Special Special Special for download through Chill.com.

The special was recorded at her own home in Los Angeles with only her parents present as the audience.

In 2013, she created and starred in a web series called Ask My Mom.

She plays both herself and her mother, who answers questions sent in by fans.

Also in 2013, she appeared as herself in one episode of the interview web series All Growz Up with Melinda Hill.

She voiced Pema in Nickelodeon cartoon The Legend of Korra.

In 2013, she appeared in season four of Arrested Development as Debrie Bardeaux, Tobias Fünke's love interest.

The series creator noted her as a comical "genius" and said that "real artists [like Maria] talk about things that nobody else talks about, and talk about them candidly."

In 2014, she won the American Comedy Award for Best Club Comic.

The 2016 Netflix original series Lady Dynamite, in which she plays the lead role, is based on her life.

She voiced Tito, the Anxiety Mosquito, in Big Mouth.

In 2023 she released a memoir, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult.

Bamford's father, Joel Bamford, was serving as a Navy doctor.

She grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, attending Chester Park Elementary and Duluth Marshall School.

She has stated that when she was younger, she was often troubled with her anxiety, depression, and what she has called "Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome", a subset of obsessive–compulsive disorder.

Upon graduating from high school, she attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

She remained on the series until it concluded in 2019.

She appeared in Season 3 of Louis C.K.'s Louie.