Nicole Sullivan Biography

Nicole Julianne Sullivan (born April 21, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, and voice artist. Sullivan is best known for her six seasons (1995"2001) on the sketch comedy series MADtv and five seasons (2001"2005, 2007) on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens.

She has played a recurring character on Scrubs and voiced the villainous Shego in Disney's Kim Possible. She had recurring voice roles on Family Guy and voiced "Franny Robinson" in Disney's Meet the Robinsons. From 2008 to 2009, Sullivan starred in and was the lead of her own Lifetime television series Rita Rocks. Currently, she voices Marlene in the series The Penguins of Madagascar. Sullivan also currently appears as Jules' (Courteney Cox) therapist, Lynn Mettler, on the comedy Cougar Town. Recently, she portrayed Lyla in the Disney channel original movie Let It Shine. She currently stars as Wilma Basset on Wendell and Vinnie.

Early life

Sullivan was born in the New York City borough of Manhattan, the daughter of Edward C. Sullivan, a New York State assemblyman. She took dance classes at age 7 and performed in Off Broadway and Broadway productions with the First All-Children's Theatre. Sullivan's mother, a business woman, and her father, who represented Manhattan's 69th Assembly District in the New York State Assembly from 1977 to 2002, moved the family upstate to Middleburgh, New York, in 1982. During high school, Nicole was class treasurer throughout her junior year. She played soccer in high school, recorded statistics for the boys' basketball team and was a member of student council.

After graduating from Middleburgh in 1987, she attended Northwestern University as a theatre major. She studied William Shakespeare, Harold Pinter, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen and Greek tragedies, while working two jobs to pay her way through college and writing plays and sketches for the student theatre. Sullivan spent her junior year in London, studying at the British American Drama Academy and became a member of the Greenwich Shakespeare Company. Sullivan graduated from Northwestern with honors, and then moved to Los Angeles before getting sporadic guest-starring roles.

Career

MADtv

Sullivan was among the original cast members on MADtv when it premiered in 1995. She created numerous characters; her most popular was the mean-spirited Vancome Lady. Sullivan's other characters included X-News reporter Amy, dimwitted Antonia, Eracists leader Debbie, News at 6's Diane Lawyer-Trabajo (pronounced "trebalyo"), racist country singer Darlene McBride, and Latina bimbo Lida. Sullivan appeared with Michael McDonald in a MADtv sketch about making an audition tape to appear on Law & Order that mocked their acting prowess; she later guest-starred in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Contact". Sullivan was featured in the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of Making Music Magazine.

Impersonations

Sullivan's impersonations included Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore, Justin Timberlake, Hillary Clinton, Mary-Kate Olsen, Jennifer Aniston, Nancy Reagan, Meg Ryan, Celine Dion, Melanie Griffith, Jenna Elfman, Uma Thurman, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kim Cattrall, Beth Broderick, Anne Robinson, Helen Hunt, Edie Falco (as Carmela Soprano from The Sopranos), Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton, Lucille Ball (as Lucy Ricardo in a trio of I Love Lucy parodies), and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Voice acting projects

Sullivan was originally cast as Turanga Leela, one of the main characters in the animated series Futurama, which premiered in 1999. Due to a casting change, Katey Sagal was instead given the role before the series even aired.

Sullivan has voiced Marlene the Otter on The Penguins of Madagascar " a spin-off series from the successful hit movies Madagascar, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted ", which aired on Nickelodeon, Shego on Kim Possible; Joan of Arc on Clone High; Mira Nova on Buzz Lightyear of Star Command; and Joan on the Family Guy episode, "I Take Thee Quagmire", along with several other one time voices on the show. Sullivan has also starred in a pilot called, Me and My Needs, that was rejected by ABC. She played Franny Robinson in Meet the Robinsons. Also, Sullivan was a voice actor in the Monsters, Inc. video game. She played Luna in the 2007 video game Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. In 2012, she also provided the voice of Supergirl in Super Best Friends Forever, a series of animated shorts airing on Cartoon Network's DC Nation block.

Personal life

Sullivan is married to actor Jason Packham. They have two sons named Dashel Pierce and Beckett Edward.

Sullivan won the first edition of Celebrity Poker Showdown. Her charity was Alley Cat Allies, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to transforming communities to protect and improve the lives of cats, which received $100,000 as a result of her victory.

Selected filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
2000	Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins	Mira Nova (Voice)	Direct-to-DVD release
2002	The Third Wheel	Sally	Uncredited
2005	Guess Who	Liz Klein
	Sesame Street's All-Star Alphabet	Letter A	Direct-to-DVD release
2006	The Ant Bully	Ant #9	Voice
2007	Meet the Robinsons	Franny	Voice
2008	Superhero Movie	Julia Riker
2009	Black Dynamite	Patricia Nixon
	17 Again	Naomi
2012	Let It Shine	Lyla	Disney Channel Original Movie
TV Appearances
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1991	Herman's Head	Young Woman	1 episode
1994	Party of Five	Terry	1 episode
	Models Inc.	Elaine	1 episode
1995"2001	MADtv	Various roles	140 episodes
1997	The Drew Carey Show	Diane Pulaski	1 episode
	Fired Up	Debbie	3 episodes
1999	Suddenly Susan	Claire Teevens, Nate's Ex-wife	1 episode
2000	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Jen Caulder	1 episode
	Titus	Carol	1 episode
2000"2001	Buzz Lightyear of Star Command	Mira Nova (Voice)	60 episodes
2000"2002	Baby Blues	Bizzy the Baby-Sitter (Voice)	3 episodes
2000"present	Family Guy	Various characters (Voice)	22 episodes
2001	According to Jim	Alicia	1 episode
2001"2007	The King of Queens	Holly Shumpert/Marilyn (1 episode)	49 episodes
2001"2009	Scrubs	Jill Tracy	6 episodes
2002"2003	Clone High	Joan of Arc/Marie Curie (Voice)	13 episodes
2002"2007	Kim Possible	Shego (Voice)	45 episodes
2003	Less than Perfect	Deirdre Bishop	2 episodes
	Miss Match	Rachel	1 episode
2004	Crank Yankers	Esperanza Thomas (Voice)	1 episode
2005	Monk	Janet Novak	1 episode
	Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama	Shego (Voice)	Television movie
	Hot Properties	Chloe Reid	13 episodes
2006	American Dad!	Janice (Voice)	1 episode
	Boston Legal	Joan Rubin	1 episode
	Brandy & Mr. Whiskers	Gerri (Voice)	2 episodes
2007	Raines	Carolyn Crumley	7 episodes
	My Boys	Kimmie	2 episodes
	Slacker Cats	Louise (Voice)	2 episodes
2008	Head Case	Herself	2 Episodes
	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Nancy Twicker	1 episode
	The Suite Life of Zack & Cody	Miss Klotz	1 episode
2008"2009	The Secret Saturdays	Drew Saturday (Voice)	21 episodes
	Rita Rocks	Rita Clemens	40 episodes
2009	Leverage	Heather Moscone	1 episode
	True Jackson, VP	Kreuftlva	1 episode
2009"present	The Penguins of Madagascar	Marlene (Voice)	59 episodes
2010	Numb3rs	Nancy Hackett	1 episode
	$#*! My Dad Says	Bonnie	Main cast
	The Doctors	Herself	Guest
2012	RuPaul's Drag Race	Herself	Guest Judge
	Super Best Friends Forever	Supergirl (voice)	TV short
	The Game	Sadie	1 episode
2012"present	Cougar Town	Lynn Mettler	Recurring role
2013-present	Wendell and Vinnie	Wilma Baset	Co-Starring