Katy Mixon

BIOGRAPHY

Katy Mixon grew up in Pensacola, Florida in a family of six siblings. In an entertaining ode to her future role in Four Christmases, Katy Mixon's family once experienced a good old fashioned Christmas disaster. It came in the form of a wreath that formed a close bond with some nearby candles, quickly filling the Mixon household with smoke and flames. While the wreath didn't survive the incident, everyone else did.

Though she had the Florida sun and surf at her doorstep, Katy Mixon took off for Pittsburgh after high school. Her reasoning was the pursuit of acting, which began with extensive training at the city's Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. Katy Mixon's looks and Southern hospitality immediately made her unique, as did her spirited delivery of a Shakespearean monologue from As You Like It -- a performance that showed a natural flair for comedy. Katy Mixon's love of Shakespeare carried over into a stint at the 2000 Utah Shakespearean Festival and after her time at Carnegie was up, she packed her bags for Los Angeles in 2003.

KATY MIXON STARS IN THE QUIET AND MY NAME IS EARL
Two years after her arrival in the City of Angels, Katy Mixon made her professional acting debut as the jealous and outspoken best pal of Elisha Cuthbert in the 2005 thriller, The Quiet. She quickly followed it up with small roles in the culture clash romantic comedy Blind Dating (featuring Chris Pine of Star Trek) and the undead-themed Zombie Prom, which won Best Short Film from the Palm Beach International Film Festival.

In 2007, Katy Mixon tried the small screen on for size, beginning with 2007's Reinventing the Wheelers, about a lawyer's adventures in the Deep South. The show's pilot was not picked up and a similar fate besieged the 2008 series Small Town News. Better luck would come for Katy Mixon on My Name Is Earl, where she enjoyed a memorable guest appearance as Sheila, a stuntman's girlfriend who once maintained a torrid affair with star Jason Lee.

KATY MIXON STARS CHRISTMASES AND JOINS THE CAST OF EASTBOUND & DOWN

For her next major role, Katy Mixon looked for inspiration in her Southern background, specifically from her neighbors on the hick side of the tracks. The white-trash research was necessary to play Susan, the pregnant companion of rough-and-tumble cage fighter Jon Favreau in the 2008 winter hit, Four Christmases. From there, Katy Mixon took on a pair of supporting roles in the Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck thriller State of Play and The Informers, a multi-character mosaic featuring Billy Bob Thornton and Kim Basinger that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Katy Mixon's next project would also become her most popular one. She joined forces with Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express character actor of the moment Danny McBride for the HBO series, Eastbound & Down. Produced by Will Ferrell, the show featured Katy Mixon as April Buchanan, the sweet teacher and former girlfriend of washed-up ballplayer Kenny Powers (McBride). Unlike her other short-lived television ventures, Eastbound & Down survived its first season and was renewed for a second one. She followed it up with a supporting role in the Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper comedy, All About Steve.

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