Raphael attended New York University (NYU), where she studied acting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. After graduating from NYU in 2002, Raphael and her best friend from college, Casey Wilson, studied improvisational comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City, where they would eventually run their two-woman sketch show for a number of years. Performing the long-running stage show opened doors for them as writers.
Career
Raphael began her comedy career writing and performing with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) in New York and later in Los Angeles. Among her best known work at UCB was the long-running sketch show Rode Hard and Put Away Wet, written and performed alongside her comedy partner and best friend Casey Wilson;[3] the stage show ran from 2003 to 2006 in New York and Los Angeles and was an official selection at 2005's US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. Raphael and Wilson's comedic partnership has since branched out into an active writing career in film and television; they co-wrote their first screenplay for the comedy Bride Wars, in which they also appeared in supporting roles.[4]
Raphael co-starred in the Adult Swim action-comedy series NTSF:SD:SUV::, which aired for three seasons from 2011 to 2013.[5] She currently co-hosts with her husband, Paul Scheer, the movie discussion podcast How Did This Get Made? along with comedian Jason Mantzoukas. The podcast is a roundtable discussion where Scheer, Raphael, Mantzoukas and other special guests "try make sense of movies that make absolutely no sense."[13]
In 2015, Raphael took on a leading role as Brianna Hanson in the Netflix comedy series Grace and Frankie.[6] Together with Kate Black, Raphael authored Represent: The Woman's Guide to Running for Office and Changing the World, a step-by-step guide for women who are considering a political career.[14]
Personal life
Raphael is married to actor-comedian Paul Scheer. They met in January 2004, after first meeting when the artistic director of Manhattan's Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre brought Scheer in to offer advice to Raphael and her comedy partner Casey Wilson on making improvements to their UCB two-woman sketch show. They moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2005. In October 2009, they married at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.[15] They have two sons, born 2014[16] and 2016.[17]