Samantha Mathis

Samantha Mathis (born May 12, 1970) is an American actress and trade union leader who served as the Vice President, Actors/Performers of SAG-AFTRA from 2015 to 2019. The daughter of actress Bibi Besch, Mathis made her film debut in Pump Up the Volume, provided the voice of Crysta in FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), and had a lead role in The Thing Called Love (1993). Mathis subsequently had supporting roles in films such as Little Women (1994), How to Make an American Quilt, The American President (both 1995), Broken Arrow (1996), American Psycho (2000), The Punisher (2004), American Pastoral (2016), Ray Meets Helen (2017), Being Frank, The Clovehitch Killer (both 2018), The Exorcism (2024), and By Design (2025).

She also had recurring roles as Justine Feraldo on the second and third seasons of the FX horror drama series The Strain (2015–2016) and Sara Hammon on the fourth season of the Showtime drama series Billions (2019).

Early life Mathis was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of Donald Mathis and Austrian-American actress Bibi Besch. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and Mathis was brought up by her mother. She relocated with her mother to Los Angeles, California, at the age of five.

Career Mathis began acting professionally at the age of 16. Her first job was a commercial for "Always Slender Pads – Just for Teens". She also appeared in Super Mario Bros. (1993), in which she played Princess Daisy from the popular Nintendo video game. The film was a box-office bomb but gained a cult following since its release.

Mathis co-starred with River Phoenix in The Thing Called Love (1993). She appeared in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women, and in How to Make an American Quilt (1995), both starring Winona Ryder. She then appeared in The American President (1995), playing the assistant to the President of the United States. Mathis co-starred with Slater again, along with John Travolta, in John Woo's Broken Arrow (1996). She took a little over a year off from acting after her mother died in 1996 from breast cancer. Her indie film Lebanon, PA (2010) had its world premiere at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival. She appeared in an off-Broadway production of the play, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, at New York City's Westside Theatre in October 2011.

In 2013, Mathis played psychiatrist Alice Calvert on the CBS television series Under the Dome, based on a novel by Stephen King. In 2014, she joined the cast of the FX horror drama series The Strain as Justine Feraldo, a New York City councilwoman for Staten Island.

In October 2015, Mathis was elected National Vice President, Actors/Performers of SAG-AFTRA. She was re-elected in 2017. Her 2020 musical Whisper House was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the autopsy report the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department detailed that Mathis refused several times to give more details surrounding the death of Phoenix and had told deputies at the time of Phoenix's death that she had no knowledge of his drug use. Mathis took a role in the film Jack and Sarah (1995), which was shot in London, to get out of the country after Phoenix's death because of the excessive press coverage.

Mathis spoke for the first time publicly about the death of Phoenix in an interview with The Guardian in 2018. She elaborated on the circumstances surrounding Phoenix's death: "I knew something was wrong that night, something I didn't understand. I didn't see anyone doing drugs but he was high in a way that made me feel uncomfortable...the heroin that killed him didn't happen until he was in the Viper Room. I have my suspicions about what was going on, but I didn't see anything."

Filmography

Film

Television