Strahovski was born in Werrington Downs, New South Wales, Australia the daughter of Piotr and Bożena Strzechowski; her parents immigrated from Warsaw, Poland. Her father is an electronic engineer, and her mother is a lab technician. Strahovski began acting lessons at age 12 and spent her high school years attending Santa Sabina College, Strathfield. She attended the University of Western Sydney's Theatre Nepean in 2003 and co-founded a small theater company.
Career
Strahovski started acting during her schooling years when she played Viola in the school production of Twelfth Night. She appeared in film and television roles in Australia, including a turn on satirical show Double the Fist and as Freya Lewis in the Australian drama series headLand. She has also appeared in Channel Nine's Sea Patrol. Strahovski sent in her audition tape for the TV series Chuck while in the United States auditioning for roles in other shows, namely NBC's 2007 series Bionic Woman. She was contacted by the producers of Chuck the next day to come in and run lines with Zachary Levi. The producers called her back a week later letting her know she had been cast as Sarah Walker. Six months later, she moved to the United States. Strahovski adopted the more phonetic spelling of Strahovski as her stage name in place of Strzechowski at this time, at producer Josh Schwartz's behest for the sake of easier pronunciation. Strahovski speaks fluent Polish, and employed it in a brief exchange with a colleague in the Chuck episode "Chuck Versus the Wookiee" and again in the episodes "Chuck Versus the Three Words" and "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners". Although she portrays an American in the series, she briefly spoke in a "Hollywood" Australian accent in the episode "Chuck Versus the Ex". Strahovski appears in Mass Effect Galaxy, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 as the voice of Miranda Lawson. She had her face scanned and animated so she could portray Lawson in Mass Effect 2. Strahovski voices Aya Brea in the English version of the Parasite Eve spinoff, The 3rd Birthday, which was released on March 2011 for the PlayStation Portable. She also appeared in a CollegeHumor sketch in April 2011, parodying the music styles of Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, and Justin Bieber. Strahovski appeared in the 2011 film Killer Elite, alongside Jason Statham, Clive Owen, and Robert De Niro. She also appeared in the 2012 comedy The Guilt Trip, opposite Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand. In 2010, Strahovski received the Teen Choice Award for Choice Action TV Actress for Chuck, as well as a nomination for Spike Video Game Awards for Best Performance by a Human Female for Mass Effect 2. In 2011, Strahovski was nominated again for the Teen Choice Awards for Choice Action TV Actress. In 2011, Cosmopolitan Magazine named Strahovski the Fun Fearless Female of the Year, along with Favorite TV Actress. In November 2011, Strahovski was cast as the female lead in I, Frankenstein. In March 2012, she was featured in a new SoBe Life commercial. And in May 2012, Strahovski ranked No. 35 in Maxim Hot 100. In June 2012, Showtime announced Strahovski had joined the cast for the seventh season of Dexter in which she plays the role of Hannah McKay, a woman involved with an investigation following the death of her former lover, a spree killer whom she accompanied when she was a teenager. She reprised her role as Hannah McKay in the eighth season of Dexter. In December 2012, she made her Broadway debut in a revival of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy, for which she won a Theatre World Award. Strahovski was honored along with Liam Hemsworth for their work in international roles with the 2012 Australians in Film Breakthrough Award. In 2014, Strahovski joined Fox's TV series cast as Kate Morgan, CIA agent. Later that year, she was cast as Rene Carpenter on the ABC limited series The Astronaut Wives Club. In 2016, she starred, along with Adrien Brody, as Caroline Crowley in the film noir Manhattan Night. She was featured in Maxim Hot 100 from 2009 to 2013. Since 2017, she has starred as Serena Joy Waterford in the acclaimed Hulu drama series The Handmaid's Tale. For her performance, Strahovski earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2018.
Personal life
At the 2017 Emmy Awards, Strahovski revealed that she was married to Tim Loden, her partner of six years. Their first child, a boy named William, was born in October 2018.
