Aisha Tyler Biography

Aisha Tyler (born September 18, 1970) is an American talk show host, actress, comedian, author, producer, writer, and director. She is known for portraying Andrea Marino in the first season of Ghost Whisperer, voicing Lana Kane in Archer, portraying Dr. Tara Lewis in Criminal Minds where she replaced Jennifer Love Hewitt and portraying Mother Nature in the Santa Clause film series, as well as recurring roles in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Talk Soup and Friends. She is a co-host of CBS's The Talk, and the current host of Whose Line is it Anyway?, and has hosted the Ubisoft E3 press conferences for the past five years, and has also made various video game appearances including Halo: Reach and Ubisoft's Watch Dogs where her voice and likeness are featured.

Early life

Tyler was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Robin Gregory, a teacher, and James Tyler, a photographer. The family spent one year in Ethiopia, and later spent time living in an Ashram in the US. Her parents amicably divorced when she was 10 and she was raised by her father while her sister was raised by their mother (the family maintained connections after the divorce). She pursued an early interest in comedy at McAteer High School in San Francisco, which had a special program called School of the Arts, now named Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. Tyler attended high school with Sam Rockwell, and Margaret Cho. She had a crush on Rockwell, and followed him into acting class one day, leading to her interest in improv and sketch.

Tyler graduated from Dartmouth College in 1992. She was a member of The Tabard, a co-ed fraternity. At Dartmouth, she co-founded and sang in the Dartmouth Rockapellas, an all-female a cappella group devoted to spreading social awareness through song. After briefly working for a San Francisco advertising firm, she toured the country pursuing a comedy career before moving to Los Angeles in 1996.

Career

Tyler's career in television took off in 2001 with jobs as the host of Talk Soup and the reality-dating series The Fifth Wheel, although Talk Soup was canceled the following year and Tyler left The Fifth Wheel in 2002 to pursue other interests. Tyler has devoted a significant amount of her time to independent projects, including a role in the play Moose Mating, for which she received an NAACP Image Award. She also wrote, directed, and starred in the independent short film The Whipper. Moving into acting, Tyler featured in Friends as Dr. Charlie Wheeler, Joey's and then Ross' girlfriend, in the ninth and tenth seasons. She followed this up with guest spots on CSI: Miami and Nip/Tuck, as well as balancing season-long recurring roles on both CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and 24 during the 2004-2005 television season. She also filmed her own sitcom pilot for CBS, which was not picked up. She has guest-starred on MADtv.

Following her regular role on the CBS series Ghost Whisperer during its first season, Tyler appeared in several films, including The Santa Clause 2, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, .45, and the comedy Balls of Fury. In 2007, she filmed the thriller Death Sentence and the crime drama Black Water Transit. She also continues to appear on television, with appearances on Boston Legal, Reno 911!, The Boondocks, and as a guest film critic on several episodes of At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper, filling in for the absent Roger Ebert while he recuperated from surgery.

Tyler has moved into print media as a regular contributor to Glamour, Jane, and Entertainment Weekly magazines. Her first book, Swerve: A Guide to the Sweet Life for Postmodern Girls, was released in January 2004. Tyler plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the Futures Without Violence charity. She also made a guest appearance on Kanye West's single "Slow Jamz", which featured Twista and Jamie Foxx. Philanthropy and charity work are very important to Tyler, and she regularly does volunteer work for the American Red Cross, The Trust for Public Land, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the International Rescue Committee.

Tyler appeared in a nude pictorial, along with other celebrities, in the May 2006 issue of Allure. The annual Nude Issue raises money to combat skin cancer.

In May 2009, it was announced that ABC had given Tyler her own talk show pilot, The Aisha Tyler Show. In early May 2010, she presented the "Welcome to the Beta" video for Halo: Reach. She also voiced a minor character in the game.

In 2009, she began her starring role voicing Lana Kane in the FX series Archer, which premiered on January 14, 2010 and has been renewed for a sixth and seventh season, to premiere through 2016. In August 2010, Tyler began appearing in a recurring guest spot on The Stephanie Miller Show. The segment is named "Tuesdays With Tyler". Tyler appears either in studio or via the phone when she is not otherwise committed to one of her acting roles. While Hal Sparks was out of the country, Tyler filled in as the third member of the Stephanie Miller Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour on three shows in August 2011.

Starting on July 26, 2011, Tyler started her own weekly podcast, Girl on Guy, where she interviews her favorite celebrity friends and discusses topics guys love. Girl on Guy is available on her website for download using iTunes, mp3, and RSS. The show launched as the No. 4 comedy podcast on iTunes and currently is the No. 2 comedy podcast, and the No. 7 overall podcast on iTunes. The first weekly installment of Girl on Guy featured guest H. Jon Benjamin, the second featured the host of Current TV's former show InfoMania Brett Erlich on August 1, 2011, and the third featured Archer creator Adam Reed on August 9, 2011.

In October 2011, it was announced that Tyler would join the cast of The Talk as a permanent co-host, replacing Holly Robinson Peete. Her first full week as a co-host was October 24 through October 28, 2011. Tyler is known for being expressive and outspoken on The Talk, especially about African American culture and stereotypes, LGBT rights, and women's rights. Tyler presented Ubisoft's press conference at E3 2012 in June, which received some backlash from fans who didn't believe Tyler was a gamer. This caused Tyler to respond with a poem about how she has been playing video games "since you were a twinge in the left side of your daddy's underoos". She returned to host the publisher's press conference the following year. Tyler's second book, Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation, debuted in July 2013, later becoming a New York Times bestseller; it was inspired by questions asked of guests on Girl on Guy.

In March 2013, Tyler was confirmed to be the new host of the American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. She also appears briefly as herself in the video game Watch Dogs and is featured in the music video for the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Tacky". Tyler was also the original voice for the character Daisy Fitzroy in the 2013 video game BioShock Infinite, but her recordings were not used and the role went to Kimberly Brooks. She was nominated for Personality of 2014 in Golden Joystick Award 2014.

In June 2015, it was announced that Tyler landed a recurring role for Season 11 of Criminal Minds. Although she served as a temporary replacement for Jennifer Love Hewitt, who was on maternity leave, her status was elevated to main cast member in Season 12.

In 2016, Tyler started a Kickstarter campaign to fund her directorial feature film debut, Axis. The project was shot over nine days in May 2016, and is due for release in 2017.

Personal life

Tyler married Jeff Tietjens in 1992. In April 2016, Tietjens filed for divorce from Tyler. The pair initially separated in January 2015, according to court documents.

Tyler is an avid fan of beer and is a home brewer. Tyler discussed her love and passion for beer on DC 101's Elliot in the Morning and The Sharon Osbourne Show. In a January 2012 interview with HoboTrashcan.com, she related that she doesn't have as much time for home brewing now as she did when she was younger. Tyler is a vocal advocate for the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	Dancing in September	Woman with Weave
2001	Moose Mating	Josie
2002	The Santa Clause 2	Mother Nature
2003	One Flight Stand	Alexis
2004	Never Die Alone	Nancy
2006	The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause	Mother Nature
	.45	Liz
2007	Death Sentence	Detective Wallis
	Balls of Fury	Mahogany
	The Trap!	Angela
2008	Meet Market	Jane
	Bedtime Stories	Donna Hynde
2009	Black Water Transit	Casey Spandau
2010	The Babymakers	Karen

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Grand Avenue	Girl No. 1	Television film
	Nash Bridges	Reporter
1999	The Pretender	Angela Somerset
2001	Curb Your Enthusiasm	Shaq's Girlfriend
	Talk Soup	Host
	Off Limits
	The Fifth Wheel	Host
2002	The Sausage Factory	Jamie
2003-2004	Friends	Dr. Charlie Wheeler	9 episodes
	CSI: Miami	Janet Medrano
2004	Untitled Aisha Tyler Project	Melanie Haywood	Unsold pilot
	Nip/Tuck	Manya Mabika
2004-2005	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Mia Dickerson	8 episodes
2005	24	Marianne Taylor	7 episodes
2005-2006	Ghost Whisperer	Andrea Marino	23 episodes
2006	For One Night	Desiree Howard	Television film
2007	Boston Legal	Taryn Campbell
	The Boondocks	Luna
2008	Million Dollar Password	Herself	Contestant
	Reno 911!	Befany Dangle
2009	Aisha Tyler is Lit: Live at the Fillmore	Herself	Stand-up special
	Celebrity Jeopardy!	Herself	Contestant
2009-present	Archer	Agent Lana Kane	Voice
2010	Chelsea Lately	Herself
	The Forgotten	Lydia Townsend
	Committed		Short film Writer, director, editor, producer
2011	XIII: The Series	Major Jones
	RuPaul's Drag Race 3	Herself	Judge
2011-present	The Talk	Herself	Co-host
2012	Glee	Jake Puckerman's Mother	1 episode
2013-present	Whose Line Is It Anyway?	Herself	Host
2013	Hawaii Five-0	Savannah Walker
	The Getaway	Herself	Host
2014	Modern Family	Wendy
	Talking Dead	Herself	Panelist
	@midnight	Herself	1 episode
	The Mind of a Chef	Herself	Bourbon connoisseur
	Two and a Half Men	Adoption Lawyer
	Hell's Kitchen	Herself	Dining room guest for Season 13's final service
2014-2015	Bojack Horseman	Mother of Sarah Lynn and Sextina Aquafina	Voice
2015-present	Criminal Minds	Dr. Tara Lewis	Recurring (Season 11) Main (Season 12);
2016	Supergirl	Herself	1 episode

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2010	Halo: Reach	Female Trooper 2	Voice Only
2011	Gears of War 3	Commander Walker	Voice Only
2014	Watch Dogs	Herself	Voice and Likeness

Web

Year	Title	Role
2011	Girl on Guy - Podcast	Host
2012	E3 - Electronics Entertainment Expo	Ubisoft Press Conference Host
2013	E3 - Electronics Entertainment Expo	Ubisoft Press Conference Host
2014	E3 - Electronics Entertainment Expo	Ubisoft Press Conference Host
	The GameOverGreggy Show	Guest
2015	Table Top: Cards Against Humanity	Guest
	E3 - Electronics Entertainment Expo	Ubisoft Press Conference Host
2016	E3 - Electronics Entertainment Expo	Ubisoft Press Conference Host

Music video

Year	Title	Artist	Notes
2003	"Slow Jamz"	Twista featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx
2009	"Nowassitall"	Herself	From her DVD Aisha Tyler is Lit
2013	"Simmer"	Silversun Pickups	Director, editor
	"Crucial Velocity"	Clutch	Director
2014	"Tacky"	"Weird Al" Yankovic
2016	"Gone Cold"	Clutch

Published works