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Producer · Actor · Writer

1990-10-31 · Orient, Ohio, United States · Female

20 series in the catalog

Patti Harrison (born October 31, 1990) is an American actress and comedian. She is best known for her roles in Shrill (2019–2021), I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (2019–2023), and Together Together (2021). For her role in Together Together, she earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.

Early life

Patti Harrison was born in Orient, Ohio, on October 31, 1990, to a Vietnamese mother and a white American father. She has six older siblings. Her father, who was from Detroit, served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and met Harrison's mother when she was a janitor in his barracks. He died of a heart attack when Harrison was six years old. Her first involvement in comedy came from her participation in an improv team during her time at Ohio University, from which she dropped out.

Career

Harrison moved to New York City to pursue a comedy career in 2015, but later moved to Los Angeles. She has said that her stand-up comedy style has changed drastically since her early career, as she initially felt anxious about making sex and sexuality jokes due to internalized transphobia stemming from being a trans woman. In an interview with Vogue, she described her comedic persona: "I'm a nasty, stupid person. That's my voice. I'm an evil, shitty person on stage, in a very conscious way—the evil is punching up."

In 2017, Harrison gained wider prominence for her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she made jokes about U.S. President Donald Trump's transgender military service ban. She has appeared in comedy series such as High Maintenance, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, Broad City, and Search Party, as well as the film A Simple Favor. In 2019, she began playing Ruthie in the Hulu comedy series Shrill after the show's co-creator and star Aidy Bryant contacted her through Instagram and encouraged her to audition. She later joined the writing team of the animated comedy series Big Mouth for its fourth season.

Harrison was named one of Variety magazine's "10 Comics to Watch" in 2019. Later that year, she co-hosted Comedy Central's digital series Unsend with Joel Kim Booster. She also co-hosts the podcast A Woman's Smile with River L. Ramirez. She co-starred in Yearly Departed (2020) alongside other comedians such as Ziwe Fumudoh. That same year, she began hosting the monthly show Died & Gone to Heaven! at Largo.

In February 2021, Harrison was banned from Twitter after she impersonated the account of Nilla Wafers in a parody of corporate pinkwashing, particularly satirizing a tweet from Oreo. The controversy led to her appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to discuss it. She became the first transgender actor to take part in a Disney animated film when she voiced Tail Chief in Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) and had her debut feature film leading role in Together Together (2021), for which she earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She serves as Miss Culturista at the annual Las Culturistas Culture Awards, hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers.

Influences

Harrison has said one of her early comedic influences was Mad TV, which she enjoyed watching during her childhood; she admired the female comedians on the show, especially Mo Collins, Nicole Sullivan, and Debra Wilson. She has also said that Kristen Wiig and Lisa Kudrow are her idols and that the Scary Movie films were her favorites as a child.

Personal life

Harrison came out as a trans woman shortly after dropping out of Ohio University, later describing her family as supportive. In 2020, she canvassed for the Democratic Socialists of America. In 2021, she was diagnosed with ADHD, telling The New Yorker that she delayed seeking a diagnosis until she had "reached a point where [she] was so frustrated with [her] inability to just stay on track". She frequently posts her artwork on Instagram.