Biography
Mary Kate Schellhardt is an American actress born on 1 November 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. She trained at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago and was discovered at the age of 13 during a nationwide casting search for the role of Ellen Grape in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993).
She played Barbara Lovell in Apollo 13 (1995) and Nadine in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995), filming these during her final years of high school while also appearing in school plays. She graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1997 and earned a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama.
After university, Schellhardt moved to Los Angeles and has taken guest roles in television series including House (2007), Scrubs (2006), Private Practice (2009) and New Girl (2016).
