Hannah Gross
Hannah Gross is an actor, born 1992.
Hannah Gross (born 1992) is a Canadian actress who grew up in Toronto with two actors for parents, Paul Gross and Martha Burns, and whose first screen credit is an uncredited walk-on in Men with Brooms as a child. She studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, taking a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre with a minor in religious studies, and then went into independent film rather than chasing television.
That choice has shaped everything since. Gross has spent a decade in small American and Canadian pictures, among them Christmas, Again, Marjorie Prime, The Mountain, Her Smell, Disappearance at Clifton Hill, Falling, Tesla and The Adults, playing women who withhold. Her register is quiet to the point of being unhelpful to a scene partner, and directors of low-budget drama love it, because it makes an audience lean in and do some of the work.
The wider audience knows her from two jobs: Debbie Mitford in Mindhunter, where she is the one person in the series willing to tell the lead that he is wrong, and a brief appearance as the young Penny in Joker. Neither is representative. She remains an independent-film actress by preference, with The Drama due in 2026.
Movies (12)
TV (2)
Where to start with Hannah Gross
MINDHUNTER is the accessible entry and a good one: her scenes are the show's only real life outside the case work, and she plays them with the scepticism the series needs. Start there, then move to the independent films, which are what she actually does.
Her Smell is the strongest of them, a loud and difficult ensemble piece where her stillness works as contrast. Marjorie Prime is the quietest and the smartest, a chamber science fiction piece about memory. The Adults and Falling are the family dramas, both uncomfortable in useful ways. Disappearance at Clifton Hill is the closest thing she has to a genre lead. Joker is a small part, so watch that out of curiosity rather than for her.