--- name: "Allison Tolman" canonical: "https://film.one/person/allison-tolman" roles: ["Actor"] born: "18 November 1981" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 82 updated: "2026-09-17T02:48:27.696165+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Allison Tolman Actor. Born 18 November 1981 in Houston, Texas, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 18 November 1981, Houston, Texas, USA - **Also known as:** Allison Cara Tolman ## Fi1m on Allison Tolman > Allison Tolman plays sensible women who are right and are not listened to, and she plays them without a shred of self-pity. *Fargo* (2014) showed what she can do with a lead; television has struggled since to give her another one that lasts. Molly Solverson, the Bemidji deputy in the first season of *Fargo* (2014), is the one who has worked out what happened, and her chief will not hear her. Most actors would play that as grievance. Allison Tolman plays it as weather, something to be got through with a coat on. She is polite, she does not raise her voice, and she does not stop. We wrote at the time that hers was the performance we remembered most from a season that also had Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman in it, and we would say it again. What got us was how little she asked for: no speech, no tears, just a woman turning up again because the work was not done. It moved us more than any of the killings did. She came to it late by television standards. A theatre degree at Baylor, a company she helped found in Dallas, then Chicago in 2009 for Second City training and odd jobs to pay for it, and she was past thirty when Noah Hawley's series aired. That history is in the acting: the Second City comic's timing and the stage actor's habit of listening to the other person. After *Fargo* the parts kept coming and the series kept ending. *Downward Dog* (2017) lasted a season. *Emergence* (2019–2020) lasted one more. She led the second season of *Why Women Kill* (2021) as Alma Fillcot, recurred in *Good Girls* (2018) as Mary Pat, and took film parts in *The Gift* (2015) and *Krampus* (2015), neither of which we have reviewed. She is also in *Review* (2014), Andrew Daly's comedy about a critic who reviews his own life, as Marissa. We scored it higher than *Fargo* and did not single her out, which tells you how she works in a group: she does not push. Comedy and drama sit close together in her. The same steady, sensible manner that made Molly credible as a police officer makes her funny when the material is absurd, because she declines to treat it as absurd. She has said: "I knew coming off 'Fargo' that I was never going to be closer than that to being like, 'I'm a leading lady, and you should treat me a leading lady.'" She has spent the years since turning down the mothers and best friends that television offers actors who look like ordinary people, and taking leads on shows that then get cancelled. That is a principled way to run a career and a hard one. The limitation is real. She is so good at the woman who is right and unheard that she has been asked to play her a good deal, and we would like to see what she does with someone who is wrong. *St. Denis Medical* (2024–) has her leading a sitcom as Alex, and it has been renewed, which for a Tolman series counts as news. Watch *Fargo* first. Then keep an eye on whatever she does next, and hope it gets a second season. ## Biography Allison Tolman is an American actress. She is best known for playing Minnesota police officer Molly Solverson in the first season of the FX series *Fargo* (2014). For the role she won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Movie/Miniseries and received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Tolman was born on 18 November 1981 in Houston, Texas. She graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatrical performance and later trained at the Second City Training Center in Chicago. She began her career in regional theatre in Dallas before moving to Chicago, where she performed sketch comedy. Her other television credits include a guest role as Marissa in *Review* (2014), the lead in the ABC series *Downward Dog* (2017) and *Emergence* (2019–2020), and Alma Fillcot in the second season of *Why Women Kill* (2021). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Fargo* (2014), Fi1m 82, as Molly Solverson — [page](https://film.one/tv/fargo-2014.md) - *Review* (2014), Fi1m 83, as Marissa — [page](https://film.one/tv/review.md) ## Also known for - *Brooklyn Nine-Nine* (2013), Olivia Crawford - *The Gift* (2015), Lucy - *Krampus* (2015), Linda - *American Dad!* (2005), Jessica (voice), Noah's Mother (voice), Museum Guest (voice) - *The Sisters Brothers* (2018), Girl Mayfield Saloon - *Archer* (2009), Edie Poovey (voice) - *The House* (2017), Dawn Mayweather - *Good Girls* (2018), Mary Pat --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/allison-tolman