Elizabeth Anne Caplan (born June 30, 1982) is an American actress. She is known for her role in the 2004 film Mean Girls and for starring in the comedy The Class.

Caplan was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in a Reform Jewish family. She attended Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles where she starred in such productions as Much Ado about Nothing and You Can’t Take It with You.

Caplan began her television acting career in 1999, when she played the minor role of Sara on the short-lived series Freaks and Geeks. She had a series of guest appearances on other shows, and has been a guest on Sharon Osbourne’s talk show.

Lizzy also appeared in Jason Mraz’s music video for You and I Both. Another of her major television characters came on Smallville, a series about Superman as a teenager. She debuted on that show on November 6, 2001, playing “freak of the week” Tina Greer on the episode “X-Ray”. She reprised her role on the show on January 14, 2003, in the episode “Visage.” For two episodes she also appeared on the series, Once and Again, as a girl named Sarah, playing an ex-girlfriend of Katie Singer (Mischa Barton).Season 3 of this show starred Mischa Barton and Evan Rachel Wood.

Like Parker Posey, Valerie Harper, and Eve Arden, actress Lizzy Caplan was a brassy brunette with a knack for sharp-tongued comedy. The young Caplan managed to impress audiences in a wide variety of film and television projects – most notably the 2004 feature “Mean Girls.” The dependable player also top-billed in the CBS comedy hit, “The Class” (2006- ), where she played – what else? – a smart and sassy young woman who had a way with a quip.

Born Elizabeth Anne Caplan on June 30, 1982 in Los Angeles, CA, Caplan attended Alexander Hamilton High School and initially studied piano, but clashes with her teachers led her to switch interests to performing.

Main roles in school plays lead to her branching out into the professional acting world, and her first on-screen appearance came in the form of the TV-movie, “From Where I Sit” (2000), starring David Paymer and Marcia Gay Harden. Caplan also appeared in four episodes of the critically acclaimed series “Freaks and Geeks” (NBC, 1999-2000) as Jason Segel’s impossibly upbeat and disco-loving girlfriend Sara. She contributed a brief appearance in the pilot episode of “Freaks” producer Judd Apatow’s equally short-lived follow-up series, “Undeclared” (Fox, 2001).

Caplan graduated to leads in 2002, starting with the short film “Hardcore Action News,” in which she plays a morose teenager whose pregnancy is exploited by an unscrupulous news program. The MTV-produced comedy “Everybody’s Doing It” followed, with Caplan as a teenager pressured into signing a sexual abstinence agreement at her high school.

A chance to handle a dramatic role came with two appearances on “Smallville” (The WB, 2001- ); Caplan played Tina Greer, a young woman whose exposure to Kryptonite gave her the ability to change her appearance. Like many Caplan roles, Tina had a darker side – a childhood filled with neglect – that prompted her to find attention by committing crimes.

Caplan’s luck as a television series regular continued to be hit-and-miss at best. Her first attempt, “The Pitts” (Fox, 2003) – co-produced by Seth MacFarlane and Mike Scully of “The Simpsons” (Fox, 1989- ) – about a family with catastrophic bad luck, lasted just five episodes. She made it through four episodes of the final season of “Tru Calling” (Fox, 2003-05) before that show was axed as well. Her highly publicized 2005 series “Related” (The WB), about the lives and romances of four sisters in New York, made it to episode 19 before the network shelved it.

In the meantime, she enjoyed a successful career as a film actress, starting in 2002 with a minor role in the Jack Black comedy, “Orange County.” Her breakthrough, however, was widely considered to be “Mean Girls.” As the black-tressed Janis Ian, sardonic sidekick to high school newcomer Lindsay Lohan, Caplan’s comedic skills attracted considerable attention from critics and audiences. She returned to drama with the thriller, “Love is the Drug” (2006), in which she played the seductive crux of a high school love triangle that goes terribly awry.

An undaunted Caplan returned to television with the ensemble sitcom, “The Class,” revealing in interviews that she nearly did not accept the part of Kat Warbler because of its similarity to Janis Ian of “Mean Girls.” The show, created by David Crane of “Friends” (NBC, 1994-2004) fame, saw its ups and downs in its time slot, but the prognosis for a second season seemed positive. Much of the reason for its viewer base has to do with the amusingly tentative relationship between Caplan’s funky, cynical photographer and Jason Ritter’s (son of John) Ethan, a kind-hearted pediatrician who loses his fiancé in the series’ first episode.

Although she was already an experienced actress, she gained much notice in the 2004 movie Mean Girls, where she played alternative styled girl Janis Ian, named for lesbian singer-songwriter Janis Ian. In 2003, she starred in the television series The Pitts, playing Faith Pitt. In the second season of Tru Calling, she played Avery Bishop, a friend of Tru Davies.

Caplan landed a starring role in 2005, playing Marjee Sorelli, the troubled sister in Related, a one-hour dramedy on The WB. The show was cancelled after one season. In 2006, Caplan played the starring role of “Sara Weller” in Wesley Strick’s thriller, Love is the Drug. And after Related ended, Caplan was cast in the CBS sitcom The Class, which premiered on September 18, 2006 and lasted one season. The final episode aired March 5, 2007.

Caplan also, along with Jason Ritter, presented a People’s Choice Award for Favourite Soundtrack From a Movie, in January 2007.

On May 16, 2007, the CBS sitcom The Class was announced as officially canceled. The Class was taped in front of a live studio audience in Burbank, California on Stage 24, the same soundstage that popular sitcom Friends was filmed on. Lizzy along with her co-star Heather Goldenhersh appeared on the talk show The View in early 2007.

Lizzy has just finished the upcoming J.J. Abrams project Cloverfield, where she plays Marlena Diamond. Her character is described as a “sarcastic outsider” who isn’t close friends with the group, she is the outsider in their midst. She is currently filming the romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Girl where she plays Ami, the room mate of Kate Hudson’s character Alexis, which is due out in 2008 along with Cloverfield. She is also lending her voice to the character of Faith Pitt, in the animated version of her cancelled tv show The Pitts in 2009.

Caplan resides in the Hollywood Hills, with some room mates. She has a cat named Lisa Turtle, which she named after her favorite character on Saved By The Bell. She dated Friends star Matthew Perry in 2006 after she was introduced to him by fellow Friends star Matt LeBlanc, who was dating her Class castmate Andrea Anders.