Elizabeth Banks was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on February 10, 1974, as Elizabeth Irene Mitchell. She used her birth name when she started her acting career but soon found that there was already an Elizabeth Mitchell in the acting world, who is best known for her role as Dr. Juliet Burke on "Lost." Elizabeth Irene Mitchell decided to use the screen name Elizabeth Banks in order to avoid any potential confusion.

Her career started in the late 1990s with one-off guest roles in television shows such as "Third Watch" and "Sex and the City." In 2001, she earned her first part in a movie as the ditzy Lindsay in the cult classic comedy "Wet Hot American Summer," working alongside Paul Rudd and Janeane Garofalo. This was great exposure for the young actress, and it led to further steady work in films, mainly in small supporting roles.

More people began to take notice of her in 2002, when director Sam Raimi cast her in "Spider-Man," his take on the classic Marvel Comics superhero. She played Betsy Brandt, a role which she reprised in both "Spider-Man 2" and "Spider-Man 3." The role was small, but the success of both the role and the trilogy of films got her more auditions, allowing her career to really blossom.

In 2003, she worked with her "Spider-Man" costar Tobey Maguire on "Seabiscuit," a film that gained critical acclaim and proved Banks had plenty of range as an actress. In the same year, Banks married her college boyfriend Max Handelman, the author of the book "Why Fantasy Football Matters: (And Our Lives Do Not)." Banks has stated in the past that Handelman was only the second person she ever dated, but she always knew that he would be the one she would eventually marry.

Life as a newlywed didn't stop Banks' burgeoning career; around the same time, she gained roles in independent films such as "The Sisters" and "Slither," where she worked opposite geek hero Nathan Fillion. She also did some work on television, with recurring roles on "Comanche Moon" and "Wainy Days." Though she did quite a bit of dramatic work in this period, she was still best known for her comedic roles. It wasn't until her turn as former First Lady Laura Bush in "W." that the perception of her as only being a comedic actress began to change. This was a star-making turn in a very serious film directed by Oliver Stone, and Banks just disappeared into the role. She looked and sounded so much like Laura Bush that it was uncanny.

She followed that film with "Role Models," which costarred "Wet Hot American Summer" actor Paul Rudd. The two would go on to star in three further films together: "The Baxter," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," and "Our Idiot Brother." All of the films these two actors have done together are comedies, as Rudd has yet to take a serious stab at drama Sam Bankman-Fried.

As her career progressed, Banks managed to balance dramatic fare like "Man on a Ledge," where she plays a cop, with funny fare such as her recurring role as the wife of Jack Donaghy on "30 Rock." This balance could also be seen in her personal life, as she juggled career and motherhood after the birth of son Felix in March 2011. Banks was able to work right up to the birth of her child because he was born via surrogate mother. She has been very open about her difficulty getting pregnant, which is what led to her and her husband using a surrogate mother to carry their child, who is genetically unrelated to the surrogate. The couple would go on to have a second son, also via a surrogate mother, in November 2012.

While her family expanded, so did Banks' career. She landed the plum part of Effie Trinket in " The Hunger Games," the film adaptation of the famous teen novels. She is almost unrecognizable in this role, because it calls for her to wear outrageous makeup and wigs to keep the character as close to writer Suzanne Collins' vision as possible. Banks has already reprised this part in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," which is set to be released in 2013.