Riki Lindhome has one of entertainment’s most versatile careers, seamlessly transitioning between acting, comedy, and music over the past two decades. Best known as half of the comedy-folk duo Garfunkel and Oates and for her role as Dr Valerie Kinbott in Netflix’s Wednesday, the multi-talented performer continues making waves in 2025 with a deeply personal one-woman musical and her debut solo album.
Biography
Born March 5, 1979, in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, Erika Joan “Riki” Lindhome grew up about 40 miles away in Portville, New York. Her parents, Cheryl and Richard Lindhome, raised her alongside her brother Tim in this small upstate community. Even in high school, Lindhome showed exceptional talent beyond performing. She won first prize in the prestigious 1997 JFK Library’s Profiles in Courage essay contest for writing about U.S. Representative Carolyn McCarthy’s response to the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting tragedy.
After graduating from Portville High School in 1997, Lindhome headed to Syracuse University, where she majored in communications and film. She joined the campus comedy sketch group Syracuse Live, getting her first taste of performance comedy. When she graduated in 2000, she had her degree but faced the same challenge every aspiring actress confronts: breaking into an industry that seems designed to keep newcomers out.
She started auditioning without an agent. Through sheer persistence and cold calling, she landed early TV roles in 2002 on shows such as Titus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Gilmore Girls. It wasn’t glamorous work; it was just small parts that paid the bills. But everything changed when she joined The Actors’ Gang theatre company in 2003.
Career
Lindhome’s big break came through an unexpected path. She appeared in Tim Robbins’ political play “Embedded” in 2003, playing both Condoleezza Rice and a reporter. The production travelled from New York to London to Los Angeles. Clint Eastwood saw the show and cast four actors from it, including Lindhome, in his 2004 film Million Dollar Baby. She played Mardell Fitzgerald, the trailer-living sister of Hilary Swank’s lead character. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, giving Lindhome instant credibility and exposure.
From there, her acting career took off. She returned to Gilmore Girls in 2005 as Juliet, the calorie-counter, in a recurring role. In 2008, she appeared in The Big Bang Theory as Ramona Nowitzki, the graduate student obsessed with Sheldon Cooper. That character became memorable enough that she returned nine years later in 2017, creating the longest gap between appearances for any character on the show.
Horror, comedy, and everything between
Lindhome has never been typecast, and that’s by design. She has played a cruel nurse in Eastwood’s Changeling (2008), the vicious antagonist Sadie in the horror remake The Last House on the Left (2009), and appeared in the mystery hit Knives Out (2019) alongside Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas. In 2020, she starred in the cult horror-comedy The Wolf of Snow Hollow, and in 2022, she landed her most prominent TV role yet in Netflix’s Wednesday.
As Dr Valerie Kinbott, Wednesday Addams’ court-ordered therapist, Lindhome appeared in one of Netflix’s most-watched series. That set would prove significant for more than just professional reasons. It’s where she met Fred Armisen, who played Uncle Fester, and fell in love while filming in Romania.
In 2007, she met actress and musician Kate Micucci at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. Both were on bad dates that night, recognised each other from commercial auditions, and became friends. They started writing comedy songs together, naming their duo after rock’s “most famous second bananas,” Art Garfunkel and John Oates.
Garfunkel and Oates became a cultural phenomenon. Their raunchy, observational comedy wrapped in sweet folk melodies resonated with millions. Songs like “The Loophole” (about technical virginity), “Pregnant Women Are Smug,” and “Sex with Ducks” went viral on YouTube, racking up over 100 million views collectively. The Wall Street Journal called them “the female Flight of the Conchords.”
The duo released three studio albums, with “Slippery When Moist” (2012) hitting number one on Billboard’s Comedy Albums chart. They got their own IFC television series in 2014, directed by Fred Savage. Although it lasted just one season, their 2016 Vimeo special, “Garfunkel and Oates: Trying to Be Special,” earned them a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the song “Frozen Lullaby.”
The duo is currently on hiatus as both pursue individual projects, but they haven’t ruled out future collaborations. They’re even developing an animated musical film called “Steps” for Netflix.
Creating her own shows
Lindhome isn’t just a performer. She’s a creator. In 2015, she co-created, wrote, produced, and starred in Comedy Central’s “Another Period” alongside Natasha Leggero. The period sitcom about the ridiculous lives of turn-of-the-century socialites ran for three seasons (2015-2018). She also hosted the Nerdist podcast “Making It with Riki Lindhome” from 2010 to 2013, where she interviewed entertainment professionals about their career paths.
Her voice work includes Poison Ivy in The Lego Batman Movie (2017) and Kimberly Harris in Fox’s animated series Duncanville (2020-2022). She’s written songs for The Big Bang Theory, Michelle Obama’s Netflix series Waffles and Mochi, and multiple animated films.
In 2024, Lindhome debuted “Dead Inside,” a one-woman musical about her fertility journey. The show premiered at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2024 to sold-out crowds and rave reviews. With executive producers Ali Wong and Bill Hader backing the project, the show combines stand-up comedy, dramatic storytelling, and original songs about egg freezing, IVF, surrogacy, and silent endometriosis.
The musical toured U.S. cities throughout 2025, hitting San Francisco, New York, Austin, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Lindhome hopes to take it Off-Broadway and potentially film it.
In April 2025, she released her debut solo album, “No Worries If Not,” featuring 11 tracks that explore love, loss, parenthood, and ageing. Her husband, Fred Armisen, and Incubus bassist Nicole Row contributed to the album.
Singles like “Middle Age Love,” “Don’t Google Mommy,” and “Hysteria” will make you burst into laughter.
Her 2024-2025 film work includes Blumhouse’s horror film AfrAId and the horror-comedy Queens of the Dead (October 2025), in which she plays a pregnant nurse named Lizzy fighting zombies during a Brooklyn drag show.
Personal Life
Lindhome’s personal life has seen tremendous change since 2022. After years of friendship, she and Fred Armisen started dating in early 2022 while filming Wednesday in Romania. Two weeks before her son was born, she told Armisen she loved him. Three months after becoming parents, they married on June 1, 2022, in a three-minute courthouse ceremony in Beverly Hills. Only their baby and one friend attended.
Their son, Keaton, was born on March 1, 2022, via a gestational surrogate. Here’s where an important clarification is necessary. On April 27, 2025, during an appearance on The Adam Carolla Podcast, Lindhome addressed a common misconception: “I started dating Fred when the child was in utero, so Fred’s not the biological dad.” Keaton was conceived using donor egg and donor sperm selected by Lindhome, who had planned to be a single mother.
The fertility journey was nine years long and heartbreaking. Lindhome struggled with undiagnosed silent endometriosis and perimenopause, conditions that made carrying a pregnancy nearly impossible. She underwent multiple IVF cycles, froze her eggs, suffered a devastating pregnancy loss, endured seven surgeries to fix complications from a botched abortion procedure, and even had an adoption fall through during COVID. At 40, after her then-boyfriend of two years broke up with her, she decided on surrogacy with donor gametes.
When Armisen entered her life romantically, she was transparent about her situation. She gave him the option to walk away without judgment. He chose to stay, and they became what she calls an “insta-family.” Armisen is Keaton’s father in every way that matters, even if not biologically.
The couple lives in Los Angeles in a French Normandy-style cottage in Los Feliz, which they purchased in December 2022 for $4.3 million. The historic 1930s home once belonged to a suspect in the Black Dahlia case and later to Grey’s Anatomy actor T.R. Knight. Lindhome also owns a mid-century modern home in Culver City, which she purchased in 2019 for $2.3 million; it has recently been listed for sale.
Net Worth
Estimates of Riki Lindhome’s net worth vary, but the most credible sources place it at $2.5 to $3 million as of 2024-2025. Celebrity Net Worth lists her at $3 million, while other recent estimates fall around $2.5 million.
Her income comes from diverse sources: residuals from hit shows like The Big Bang Theory and Wednesday, streaming royalties from Garfunkel and Oates’ extensive catalogue, voice acting fees, writing and producing credits, touring revenue from Dead Inside, and album sales. She’s also earned money from her real estate investments.
She has over 97 acting credits, spanning film, television, and animation, as well as her music career and creative producing work.
