To those of you who have watched True Blood at all since the end of the first season, series star Deborah Ann Woll isn't exactly an unfamiliar face: She's starred in the series as Jessica Hamby since 2008, the 17-year-old Bible-studying good girl virgin turned vampire with an existential crisis and more relationship drama than Sookie Stackhouse herself. Woll has long been one of the best parts of the series, even as other plotlines involving werewolves, witches, and, yes, vampire Gods, seemed to make the show a shell of what it used to be (sorry, True Blood fans, I still love the show too!). Anyway, now that the show's ending this year, it's great to see that others in Hollywood have noticed Woll's undeniable talent — with True Blood being one of her first projects apart from Law & Order: SVU and two episodes of My Name Is Earl, I was worried it might be difficult for her to get different projects with her career so associated with playing one character for seven years. Luckily, that is not the case: According to Indiewire, Marvel's Netflix series Daredevil has cast Deborah Ann Woll as the main love interest, Karen Page, to the lead character (and Daredevil himself) Matt Murdock.
This is a huge role for Woll — Marvel's Daredevil series has already attracted big names like Boardwalk Empire's Charlie Cox (who will portray Murdock himself), Elden Henson, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Rosario Dawson. Plus, being under the umbrella of Marvel's now wide-reaching multimedia platform, the show's bound to get a ton of exposure.
So, for those of you who aren't familiar with True Blood, and therefore Woll, who is she? The 29-year-old Brooklyn native may not have had a lot on her IMDb when she joined True Blood back in 2008, but she's done some films with recognizable names since: Along with Woll, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You in 2011 starred Aubrey Plaza, Lucy Lui, Peter Gallagher, Ellen Burstyn, and Marcia Gay Harden, for instance; Woll also had a part in 2012's indie comedy Ruby Sparks.
She's also been a major voice in numerous issues for social support and change: She's spoken out against teen bullying and shared her personal experiences with being bullied when she was younger, and she's also done a lot to raise awareness about Celiacs disease — a.k.a., a high intolerance to gluten — as she herself suffers from it, as well as Choroideremia, a disease which forces retinal degeneration (blindness) that her longtime boyfriend, E.J. Scott, suffers from. Also, on a cuter note, she's been with Scott since 2007, and the two met over Match.com. Online dating does sometimes work!
And did I mention she's absolutely stunning?
Marvel's Daredevil series will include 13 episodes, and is set to premiere sometime next year.
Image: Tumblr
