It’s not every day you come across a stunning woman who’ll also make you collapse into laughter. Of course, between her Los Angeles upbringing and her “training” as a clown at kids’ birthday parties, Alison’s struck that delicate middle ground as she continues to climb the ranks as an actress.
She describes herself as “perky” and “a talker.” She’s impossible not to like. She has two major TV roles under her belt: as a tight-laced wife with an increasingly out-of-control husband, Trudy, on Mad Men, and Annie, an ex-addict college student, on Community.The switch from comedy to drama wasn’t too much of a challenge. “It was an easy transition,” she told the A.V. Club. “It’s so fun. It’s such an honor to be recognized for both genres, and to have the opportunity to work on shows of such great caliber in both genres.”

Her time as a party entertainer sounds much less glamorous. “The kids were not so bad...The worst part—and again, it goes back to the Power Puff Girls...I had to wear a big head with a chinstrap—was being ogled by strange dads,” Alison told The Daily Beast. That was weird. It’s like, ‘I have a huge head on! You don’t even know what I look like, so stop looking up my skirt!’”

As a kid herself, Alison began acting at an early age, first taking the stage of the Jewish Community Center, once playing the role of Toto in The Wizard of Oz, and eventually studying theater at the California Institute of the Arts. “I like to think I was maybe one of the cooler drama nerds,” she said of her high-school self in an interview with Basket of Kisses. Her first big-screen appearance? As a hair stylist in the Hannah Montana series that starred Miley Cyrus.