Daryl Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is an American actress, director, and environmental activist. She has acted in comedic and dramatic roles in more than a hundred film and television productions since the 1970s.
Hannah has appeared in a number of successful action and thriller films. The supernatural The Fury (1978) began her career and she achieved fame with Blade Runner in 1982. Romantic comedies followed: Summer Lovers (1982), the fantasy comedy Splash (1984), Roxanne (1987), and High Spirits (1988).
Drama films have included Wall Street (1987), the comedy drama Steel Magnolias (1989), and the martial arts features Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Volume 2 (2004). On television, Hannah has starred in the Netflix series Sense8 (2015). Outside of acting, Hannah has directed and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Music Film. She is noted for her environmental and social activism.
Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Susan Jeanne Metzger, a producer and former schoolteacher, and Donald Christian Hannah, a tugboat and barge company owner. Her parents divorced, and her mother married businessman Jerrold Wexler, brother of cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Hannah grew up with siblings Don and Page Hannah and her maternal half-sister, Tanya Wexler, in Long Grove, Illinois. She was raised Roman Catholic; her stepfather, Jerrold Wexler, was Jewish.
Hannah became interested in movies at a young age, partly due to insomnia. She has said that she was very shy growing up. As a young child, Hannah was emotionally isolated and struggled in school. She was diagnosed with autism, and medical professionals urged her parents to have her institutionalized and medicated. Instead, her mother decided to relocate with Hannah temporarily to Jamaica, in hopes that the change in environment would help her daughter. Hannah later attended the progressive Francis W. Parker School in Chicago before enrolling at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she studied ballet and acting, majoring in theatre.
Hannah made her film debut at age 17 in 1978 with an appearance in Brian De Palma's horror film The Fury. She had an early role along with Rachel Ward in the 1983 horror film The Final Terror. The film was shot in 1981 and released in 1983.
In 1982, Hannah played the acrobatic and violent replicant Pris in Ridley Scott's science fiction classic Blade Runner, in which she performed some of her own gymnastic stunts. That same year, she appeared in the summer hit release Summer Lovers. Her role as a mermaid in Ron Howard's hit fantasy/comedy Splash (1984), opposite Tom Hanks brought her much recognition. Also in 1984, she appeared in The Pope of Greenwich Village, co-starring with Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts.
In 1985, Hannah appeared in and provided backing vocals in the music video "You're a Friend of Mine", performed by Clarence Clemons and Jackson Browne. She also appeared in the music video for Browne's "Tender Is the Night". Hannah's other 1980s roles included the film version of the best seller The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) and Legal Eagles (1986) starring Robert Redford and Debra Winger. She appeared in the Academy Award-winning Wall Street (1987), for which she received a Razzie Award.
In 1987, Hannah starred in the title role of Fred Schepisi's film Roxanne, a modern retelling of Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac. Her performance was described as "sweet" and "gentle" by film critic Roger Ebert. She also starred in High Spirits (1988) opposite Peter O'Toole and ended the decade with Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Steel Magnolias featuring Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, and Dolly Parton (1989).
In 1993, Hannah first played the daughter of Jack Lemmon's character in both of the Grumpy Old Men comedies. That same year, she played Nancy Archer in the HBO comedy remake of Attack Of The Fifty-Foot Woman. In 1995 she appeared as homicidal sociopath Leann Netherwood in The Tie That Binds. In 1998 she played the co-lead to Christopher Reeve in the made-for-television film remake Rear Window. That same year she also starred in the direct-to-video film Addams Family Reunion playing Morticia Addams.
In 2003, Hannah played Elle Driver, a one-eyed assassin, in Kill Bill: Volume 1, directed by Quentin Tarantino. Her performance in this film and her appearances in Speedway Junky (1999), Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000), A Walk to Remember (2002), Northfork (2003), Casa de los Babys (2003) and Silver City (2004), have been described by some reviewers as a comeback. After Kill Bill, she appeared in several TV films and miniseries, including the Syfy original film Shark Swarm, Final Days of Planet Earth for the Hallmark Channel, and Kung Fu Killer for Spike. She also appeared in Shannon's Rainbow and The Devil's ground also known as The Cycle in 2009.
In the 2010s, Hannah appeared in several films, including A Closed Book and Eldorado. Robert Koehler of Variety wrote of A Closed Book that it allows curious fans to see what Hannah has been up to lately. In 2013, she starred in Zombie Night, a Syfy original film by The Asylum as well as in TV movie Social Nightmare (a.k.a. Mother: She'll Keep You Safe), a thriller by The Asylum about internet bullying. In 2013, she joined Skin Traffik, and, in 2014, she signed on to Signs of Death.
Beginning in 2015, Hannah portrayed Angelica Turing in Sense8, a series on Netflix from the Wachowskis. The series ran for two seasons, with a final episode released on June 8, 2018. Also in 2018, Hannah released Paradox, for which she served as writer and producer; the film featured her husband, musician Neil Young.
In 2020, Hannah starred in The Now, a comedy series for The Roku Channel opposite Dave Franco.
In 2023 she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Music Film for Neil Young & Crazy Horse's "A Band A Brotherhood A Barn".
In 2025, Hannah directed the 2025 documentary film Coastal, a behind the scenes look at Neil Young's Coastal concert tour.
Hannah is an accomplished theater actress, reprising Marilyn Monroe's starring role in The Seven Year Itch in 2000 in London's West End. Reviews of the play commended Hannah's performance, with Lizzie Loveridge of Curtain Up! saying that the play was the "perfect vehicle" for Hannah to "show her talents as a comedienne."
Hannah wrote, directed and produced a short film titled The Last Supper. She directed, produced, and was cinematographer for the documentary Strip Notes, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK and on HBO and documented the research Hannah did for her role as a stripper in Dancing at the Blue Iguana.