Lea Michele Sarfati (/ˈliːə mɪˈʃɛl/; born August 29, 1986) is an American actress, singer, and author. She began her career as a child actress on Broadway, appearing in productions of Les Misérables (1995–1996), Ragtime (1997–1999), Fiddler on the Roof (2004–2005), and Spring Awakening (2006–2008). Michele came to prominence playing Rachel Berry on the Fox series Glee (2009–2015), for which she received an Emmy Award nomination, two Golden Globe nominations and won four People's Choice Awards, three Teen Choice Awards and a Satellite Award. Michele and the rest of the Glee cast earned a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series from four nominations and three Grammy Award nominations for music recorded for the series, also spawning multiple hits on the Billboard charts. Michele subsequently starred as Hester Ulrich on the Fox series Scream Queens (2015–2016) and as Valentina Barella on the ABC sitcom The Mayor (2017).
Michele made her feature film debut in New Year's Eve (2011), and was signed to Columbia Records in 2012. She released her debut single the following year, "Cannonball", followed by her debut studio album, Louder (2014), which debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States. Three years later, she released her second studio album, Places (2017), which debuted at number 28 on the Billboard 200. In 2019, she released Christmas in the City, her third studio album. Michele has also published two books, Brunette Ambition (2014) and You First: Journal Your Way to Your Best Life (2015).