Early life, family, educational background
American actress Kelen Sadie Coleman was born on 19 April 1984, in Nashville, Tennessee USA. She grew up in Potomac, Maryland, USA after her family moved there shortly after her birth. She matriculated from Winston Churchill High School before attending Chapel Hill’s University of North Carolina.
Family’s personal life
Kelen’s dad is a multi-Grammy-Award-winning bluegrass musician, T. Michael Coleman, well-known for his folk and bluegrass musical work with Seldom Scene and Doc Watson.
He began his career with Doc Watson and his son, Merle, as a bass player from 1974 to 1986, then played with The Seldom Scene until 1995, and Chesapeake until they disbanded in 1999.
After Doc’s passing in 2012, he took a break in 2013 to record a tribute album for him, “Ready for the Times” with David Holt and Bryan Sutton. In 2016, he released “Pocket,” his only solo album featuring several other artists. He is also an award-winning movie maker, most known for 2008’s “Children of Armageddon” and 2012’s “Inside the Afghanistan War.”
Kelen’s mother is Robin Coleman, and her brother is a graphic designer, Josh Coleman.
Career
Kelen began acting in 2008 at the age of 23, when she appeared as Natalie Gerrard in “CSI: NY”’s season four episode “Admissions”, a performance which led her to win more roles, such as playing Leigh Ann in 2009’s television movie “The Big D,” in 2012 as Presley in “Hart of Dixie,” as well as Jude in the television series “Men at Work” and Hope in “Californication”, both in 2014.
She is best known for her recurring role in season six of “The Office” as Dental Hygienist Isabel Poreba, from 2009 to 2010. Isabel is Pam’s cousin and therefore, a minor but sympathetic character, and was very supportive of Pam during her wedding. Dwight Shrute calls Isabel a ‘bumpkin’ which is considered an enormous compliment coming from him. She is a quirky, resourceful character and briefly becomes Dwight’s friend and lover. Her intimate relationship with Dwight is useful when Isabel helps Pam get along with him. From 2014 to 2015 she appeared as series regular Jackie McCarthy in “The McCarthys.”
She regularly guest-starred as Lisa Lambert in the first season of HBO’s “The Newsroom” – her debut episode was “I’ll Try to Fix You”, and her final episode was “The Greater Fool.” From 2012 to 2013 she played Alex in “The Mindy Project,” as the voice of Woodchuck’s advisor in “BoJack Horseman” from 2014 to 2017, and adult Abby in “Me, Myself and I” from 2017 to 2018. She also played Harper Stimson from 2017 to 2019 in the critically-acclaimed television series, “Big Little Lies” which has received an 8.6/10 rating on IMDb, averaged from almost 100,000 votes.
In 2019 she appeared as Asher Millstone’s sister, Chloe Millstone in four episodes of season six of “How to Get Away with Murder” – her debut episode was in “I Hate the World”, and her final episode was “Are You the Mole?”
She has appeared in various films too, including 2009’s “Fired Up”, and has played the lead role in several, including the 2011 horror-thriller “Cassadaga” about a deaf girl who resurrects the spirit of a murdered young woman who becomes a serial killer. In 2016 she appeared in “Flock of Dudes” and “True Memoirs of an International Assassin,” which is the last film she has since appeared, although currently filming “Breaking Them Up”, for release later in 2020.
Personal life
Kelen is very secretive about her private life. In 2011 she mentioned that she was single and not interested in looking for a relationship and was more focused on her career. On 12 July 2017, she uploaded a photo of herself kissing a guy on the cheek and called him her ‘sweetheart’ in the caption. Rumors spread of him being her boyfriend, but she soon deleted the picture. She is seemingly not in a relationship, has never married and doesn’t have any children.
She supports a lot of charity organizations, and raises awareness of poverty amongst American and non-American orphanages.
She volunteered at an orphanage in Peru in 2013, and stayed for two weeks; in an interview, she shared that she became emotionally attached to the children.
Hobbies, favorite things and interesting facts
She enjoys romantic films, and considers herself a helpless romantic. In high school, she was part of their choir, and still enjoys singing, but hasn’t sung in front of an audience since matriculating from high school.
In 2013, she appeared in Denny’s “Baconalia” commercial.
Appearance
Kelen has black hair and brown eyes. She is 5ft 9in (1.75m) tall, weighs around 145lbs (66kg), and her vital statistics are 33-24-35.
Net worth and salary
As of early 2020, her net worth is estimated at $1 million.