Laura Niemi as Beth Strauss | The Patient on FX

Laura Niemi

Beth Strauss

"Beth Strauss," portrayed by Laura Niemi, is the recently deceased wife of Dr. Alan Strauss and a beloved cantor at her community’s reform synagogue. Beth struggled with her relationship with her son Ezra, especially as he started a family of his own. 

Career Highlights

Niemi is a stage, film and TV actress. A native Angelino, she grew up in Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley. She started studying at The Academy of Performing Arts in Los Angeles at a young age.

Best known for her performance as “Marilyn Pearson” on the NBC series This Is Us, she will next be seen in the upcoming season of Netflix’s Stranger Things

She landed her first TV credit in Joss Whedon's Firefly and has been continuously working in television and film ever since.

The daughter of a movie producer and an insurance salesman, the family then moved to the east coast where she studied piano at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

She spent her teens and early 20s back in California, where she swapped her piano for a bass guitar playing in many LA-based bands.

As a trained theater actress she has performed at the Geffen Playhouse, South Coast Repertory and the Mark Taper Forum. She is the artistic director and founder of the multi award-winning Lost Angels Theatre Company, which landed her awards both as a producer and an actor.

Andrew Leeds headshot wearing a white collar shirt with black sweater

Andrew Leeds

as Ezra Strauss

While Alan tries to maintain a relationship with him and his grandchildren, Ezra always seems to push his father further away.