Cristin Milioti grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, knowing two things for sure from a young age: "I wanted to be in New York, and I wanted to be an actor."
After high school, she studied acting at New York University. But halfway through her sophomore year, Milioti realized she wasn’t happy with the program. Plus, she was stressed about all the student loan debt she was piling up. So, she dropped out of college.
"That decision ended up working out for me, miraculously. I had a lot of luck on my side," she reflects. After leaving NYU, Milioti was cast as the daughter of mobster John "Johnny Sack" Sacrimoni (Vincent Curatola) on the final season of The Sopranos.
It was a small part, but she had a few lines, and it seemed like a promising start to her career. "Then I didn’t work again for years," says Milioti, who took on every odd job under the sun — from babysitter to dogwalker — to make ends meet.
She eventually landed roles — and raves — in off-Broadway theater productions, but she still wasn’t doing well financially. "I was in plays at the biggest nonprofit institutions in New York City and could not pay one bill myself — I’m talking Lincoln Center," she says. Milioti lost her apartment, her cell phone service was turned off, and things weren’t looking good.
Photo credit: Stephanie Diani
Then she was cast as a Czech immigrant known as "the Girl" in the off-Broadway musical Once, based on the movie of the same name about two musicians who fall in love. The show moved to Broadway in 2012, and Milioti was nominated for a Tony Award.
"That was the first time I had steady employment," she reflects. She would go on to make her mark in television as Tracy McConnell (the "Mother") in How I Met Your Mother and as Betsy Solverson in Fargo's second season, among other roles. Milioti is also known for standout film performances in The Wolf of Wall Street and Palm Springs.
At the moment, everyone’s buzzing about her turn as mob boss Sofia Falcone in HBO's Emmy-nominated limited series The Penguin. Milioti shares the screen with Colin Farrell, who plays her archrival, Oswald "Oz" Cobb, in the dark series. "To know Colin is to love Colin. He is such a delightful human being, as well as a magnificent talent," Milioti says, describing him as "a true partner" throughout the eight months the show was in production.
Milioti’s Falcone is a ruthless, vengeful villain, and with good reason — her father, mob boss Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong), framed her for murder and had her sent away to an asylum, where for a decade she was physically and psychologically tortured.
"She’s radioactive with pain," says Milioti, who tapped into her alter ego’s trauma-informed backstory to fuel an utterly captivating performance. New York magazine’s pop culture site Vulture put it best, crediting Milioti with crafting "the most sympathetic psychopath on TV."
It’s hard to imagine anyone else portraying the character, but Milioti did have to audition. After reading the script for the first episode, she had an hours-long Zoom meeting with series creator and showrunner Lauren LeFranc, executive producer Matt Reeves (whose The Batman film spawned the series) and lead director Craig Zobel. She recalls gushing about being a lifelong Batman fan and how much she loved Reeves’s film and all the other Batman films.
Wrapped up in what she calls "a tornado of doubt" after a Los Angeles screen-test with Farrell, Milioti left the country for a solo vacation in Iceland. A couple of days into the trip, early one morning, Milioti noticed a bunch of missed calls on her phone. When she listened to her messages, she heard the good news — she’d been offered the role.
Marveling at the glorious memory, she says, "I was horseback riding on this black sand beach at the base of a glacier. There were literally swans flying by, and I had just found out that I was going to get to play a Batman villain."
Because of the time difference between Iceland and the states, it was too early for Milioti to call anyone back home to share the good news: "All my friends and family were asleep, and so I really just had to sit with it alone, which was actually very beautiful."
The Penguin is now streaming on HBO Max.
This article originally appeared in emmy Magazine, issue #8, 2025, under the title "Like a Boss."
