Actress Elizabeth Anne "Lizzy" Caplan was born in Los Angeles, California, to Barbara (Bragman), a political aide, and Richard Caplan, a lawyer. She has two older siblings, Julie and Benjamin, and was raised in a Jewish household. Her mother was a cousin of publicist Howard Bragman. Caplan was educated at Alexander Hamilton High School, where she showed an interest in acting and was cast in school plays.
After graduating, Caplan made her onscreen debut in the TV movie From Where I Sit (2000). Other roles followed in TV shows such as Voll daneben, voll im Leben (1999), Smallville (2001) and The Pitts (2003). Caplan made her big screen debut with a small role in Nix wie raus aus Orange County (2002) and went on to play Janis Ian in the hit Girls Club - Vorsicht bissig! (2004). Further successes include Cloverfield (2008), Hot Tub - Der Whirlpool... ist 'ne verdammte Zeitmaschine (2010) and 127 Hours (2010).
More recently, Caplan has played Virginia Johnson in the television series Masters of Sex (2013), for which she received an Emmy nomination. Her 2010s film work includes co-starring in The Interview (2014), opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Die Highligen drei Könige (2015), and alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, and Daniel Radcliffe in Die Unfassbaren 2 (2016).
