Erika Jane Christensen (born August 19, 1982) is an American actress and singer whose filmography includes roles in Traffic (2000), Swimfan (2002), The Banger Sisters (2002), The Perfect Score (2004), Flightplan (2005), How to Rob a Bank (2007), The Tortured (2010), and The Case for Christ (2017). For her performance in Traffic, she won the MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture along with her co-stars.
In 2006, she starred on the short-lived drama series Six Degrees on ABC. From 2010 until its ending in 2015, Christensen starred as Julia Braverman-Graham on the NBC family drama series Parenthood. In 2014, she won a Gracie Award for her performance in the role. Christensen portrayed Betty Beaumontaine on ABC's short-lived crime drama series Wicked City.
Christensen was born in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Kathy (née Hendricks), a construction manager, and Steven Christensen, an insurance worker and human resources executive. She has an older half-brother, Nick, and two younger twin brothers, Dane (who appeared in the 2005 film The Upside of Anger) and Brando. She has Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Welsh, and Irish ancestry. Christensen was raised in suburban Los Angeles, California. She started out acting on television in commercials for McDonald's. Christensen is a member of the Church of Scientology. Her parents became Scientologists in their 20s and raised her to be a Scientologist. Her parents also decided to home school her.