Patti Harrison

Patti Harrison (born October 31, 1990) is an American actress and comedian whose career has rapidly ascended since she left Ohio University in 2015 to pursue improv and stand‑up in New York City before relocating to Los Angeles. The youngest of seven children, she grew up in Orient, Ohio, the product of a Vietnamese mother who worked as a janitor during the Vietnam War and a white American father who served in the U.S. Army; her father’s death from a heart attack when she was six left a profound emotional imprint that later informed her candid and often self‑deprecating comedic voice. Harrison first discovered comedy on an improv team at Ohio University, but she left school without graduating after coming out as a transgender woman, an experience she says was met with unexpected familial support and later shaped the bold, trans‑affirming perspectives evident in her work.

Since her television breakthrough on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2017, where she lampooned the Trump administration’s transgender military ban, Harrison has become a fixture of modern absurdist comedy, appearing in series such as Shrill, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, High Maintenance, and Broad City, as well as the film A Simple Favor. In 2019 she was named one of Variety’s "10 Comics to Watch" and began co‑hosting Comedy Central’s digital series Unsend. Her 2021 lead role in Together Together earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead, and she made history as the first transgender actor to voice a character in a Disney animated feature, portraying Tail Chief in Raya and the Last Dragon. Beyond screen work, Harrison co‑hosts the podcast A Woman’s Smile, writes for Big Mouth, and continues to perform live shows such as Died & Gone to Heaven! while openly discussing her ADHD diagnosis and activism with the Democratic Socialists of America.