Zoe Swicord Kazan (born September 9, 1983) is an American actress and playwright. Kazan made her acting debut in Swordswallowers and Thin Men (2003) and later appeared in films such as The Savages (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008) and It's Complicated (2009). She starred in happythankyoumoreplease (2010), Meek's Cutoff (2010) and Ruby Sparks (2012), for which she wrote the screenplay. In 2014, she starred in the film What If and the HBO mini-series Olive Kitteridge, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Kazan has also acted in several Broadway productions. After her film debut in 2003 playing Samantha in Swordswallowers and Thin Men, Kazan went on to play her first professional stage role in the 2006 off-Broadway revival of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie starring Cynthia Nixon. In 2007 she had a small role in The Savages, which starred Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. She also guest appeared in an episode of the supernatural drama Medium as a friend of the main character's younger self. She next appeared in the films Fracture and In the Valley of Elah. In the fall of the same year, she returned to the stage in a The New Group production of 100 Saints You Should Know and Jonathan Marc Sherman's Things We Want, directed by Ethan Hawke.
Kazan was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of screenwriters Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord. Her paternal grandparents were film and theatre director Elia Kazan and playwright Molly Kazan (née Thacher). She has been dating actor Paul Dano since 2007. She capped off the year playing Meryl Streep's daughter in the Nancy Meyers comedy It's Complicated. She appeared in the Broadway production of A Behanding in Spokane with Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell until June 6, 2010. She also played a main role in the movies I Hate Valentine's Day and The Exploding Girl, which were both released in 2009. Her play We Live Here, about a dysfunctional family, received its world premiere production from October 12 to November 6, 2011 at the off-Broadway Manhattan Theater Club in New York City.