Cara Buono

Cara Buono is an Emmy nominated Bronx-born actress, who has displayed great range throughout her long and storied career. She starred as “Karen Wheeler” in the globally acclaimed series Stranger Things. She earned an Emmy nomination for her performance as “Dr. Faye Miller” on Mad Men. Before that, she featured as “Kelly Moltisanti” on The Sopranos. Most recently, she appeared in Hulu’s The Girl from Plainville as “Gail Carter” alongside Elle Fanning and Chloë Sevigny. Her numerous television credits include: Amazon's The Romanoff’s, the remake of The Bad Seed with Rob Lowe and McKenna Grace, season 4 arc as super villain Gamemnae on Supergirl, Person of Interest, all the Law & Order franchises, and The Good Wife.

Cara continued to act (on Broadway) throughout college while attending Columbia University where she graduated with a double major in English Literature and Political Science.  She continued to be seen in independent films like Noah Baumbach's directorial debut Kicking and Screaming, Nisha Ganatra’s Chutney Popcorn as well as returning to Broadway after graduation in Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo. She continued her love of indie films that include: Let Me In directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), the road movie The Discoverers with Griffin Dunne. She was the female lead in Artie Lange’s Beer League, co-starred opposite John David Washington in the Sundance hit Monsters and Me and was Edith Banner in Edith Banner in Ang Lee’s Hulk.

Most recently, she has completed the indie films: Vienna 1913, In Fidelity, She Came from the Woods, Things Like This and the Lifetime feature Kara Robinson: The Girl Who Lived.

Cara and her husband Peter Thum, co-founded the social venture Liberty United together in 2012. Liberty United gets illegal guns from law enforcement agencies, turns them into jewelry and accessories and funds go to programs to help victims of gun violence and education for at-risk youth. Cara has also been a volunteer at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Crime Victims Treatment Center (CVTC) where is trained in as a rape crisis advocate and has been working with the organization since 1993. Advocates are on call at least twice a month between the hours of 7pm-7am to be available to advocate in the emergency room for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.