Bio

Storyteller. Producer. Mother.

Twenty years of leading roles across network television, theatrical film, and prestige streaming.

Before Far Haven started shooting, Amanda Righetti wanted to learn to ride sidesaddle to stay authentic to the time period. The production team had too many safety concerns about her riding sidesaddle, so she committed to riding in a traditional style instead.

That preparation shows up across the catalog.

She grew up in St. George, Utah and just outside Las Vegas, the youngest of eight. Ballet came first, at four. A modeling card at fourteen. A hip injury ended dance at seventeen. At eighteen she moved to Los Angeles.

Her first network run was on Fox. She played Hailey Nichol on The O.C., then series-regular roles on North Shore and Reunion. In 2008, CBS cast her as Grace Van Pelt on The Mentalist. She played the part for six seasons as a regular and returned for the seventh-season finale, hitting her marks for twenty-plus episodes a season, seven seasons running.

Film moved alongside the television seasons. She anchored the 2009 theatrical reboot of Friday the 13th. Marvel cast her as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in Captain America: The First Avenger. In 2024 she played Nelle Reagan opposite Dennis Quaid in the biopic Reagan. Five days of prep, in the middle of the pandemic. The focus stayed on Nelle’s center: a mother sheltering her children from the ramifications of an alcoholic father, a deep conviction of faith, and a gentle grace in community leadership.

She produces under Cottonwood Lane Productions. Credits include Pipeline and Cats Dancing on Jupiter (Bliss Sinema), Queer Fish in God’s Waiting Room (Fish Out of Water Productions), plus shorts and indies.

Through the middle years she anchored two seasons on USA’s Colony as Maddie Kenner, a sister negotiating life under occupation; the lead in Lifetime’s Deranged Granny; a recurring run on Spectrum’s L.A.’s Finest; and the lead in the indie drama Far Haven. Stephen King watched Colony from the start and posted that it was really something special. Smart, suspenseful, subversive, and thought-provoking.

I try to keep a routine, she told Ebby Magazine. The nature of Hollywood makes it hard, she said, but she does the best she can. Twenty years in, she is still a working actor.

She is a series regular on Amazon Prime Video’s Scarpetta, playing the younger Dorothy Farinelli to Jamie Lee Curtis’s older one, with Nicole Kidman leading the cast as Dorothy’s sister Kay. The two play the same character across different eras, with the timelines kept apart. To make the handoff feel inevitable, Amanda studied Curtis’s earlier films, watched interviews, and built the younger Dorothy out of the older one’s mannerisms. Season 2 is currently filming.

On the film side, she just wrapped Shed, an independent feature heading toward distribution conversations later in 2026. Relentless, an Australian feature shot in late 2025, is being shopped for distribution at this year’s Cannes Film Festival market.

Personal

Off-camera she is a mother first. Outdoor pursuits, her son Knox, and a faith she keeps simple.

“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.”

2 Timothy 1:7