Abigail Spencer's Real Name: Abigail Spencer

Quick answer: Abigail Spencer is known professionally and in reference works as Abigail Spencer. She is an American actress who began on All My Children, appeared on Mad Men, starred as Amantha Holden on Rectify, and later had a starring role on NBC's Timeless (IndieWire; The A.V. Club).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress heading is "Spencer, Abigail, 1981-." A variant, Abigail Leigh Spencer, and a Florida birthplace appear in an IMDb-based Library of Congress citation; because those details are not independently confirmed in the interviews used here, this page uses the public name in the title and does not treat a precise date or hometown as settled. IndieWire says she was discovered at a taping of Live with Regis and Kathie Lee and soon began working on television. The A.V. Club notes an All My Children role as a teenager.

Career highlights

After All My Children, she appeared on a wide range of series. IndieWire and The A.V. Club both mention Mad Men, on which she played a teacher who becomes involved with Don Draper and, IndieWire says, was "Sally Draper's idealistic teacher." The A.V. Club also lists guest work on Ghost Whisperer and My Boys and later parts on Suits and the second season of True Detective.

Her most acclaimed television work in these interviews is Rectify, Sundance Channel's first wholly original scripted series. She played Amantha Holden, whose brother Daniel has been released after 19 years in prison without being fully exonerated. IndieWire, writing after the first season in 2013, called her an Emmy hopeful in the role. The A.V. Club, in October 2016, called Rectify a Peabody Award-winning series then entering its fourth and final season, and described the part as career-defining. Spencer spoke about the end of the show just before a Television Critics Association panel that fall. At the same time, she had begun a starring role in the NBC time-travel series Timeless, leaving her, the A.V. Club said, as a lead on two series at once. A Library of Congress citation to a Rectify season-two disc lists her in the cast.

Name notes for searchers

Abigail Spencer is the name used in interviews, awards coverage, and the Library of Congress heading. Searchers looking for Amantha on Rectify or the lead of Timeless are usually aiming at the same person.