The daughter of Jo Williams, a drug treatment counselor and concert pianist, and James Perkins, a farmer, Elizabeth Perkins grew up in Massachusetts where she experienced working in theatre with a non-profit community group. She attended Northfield Mount Hermon School then spent three years in Chicago at Goodman School of Drama. Making theatre work her top priority, she then ventured into Broadway and made her debut in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs before joining The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Steppenwolf Theater.
In 1986, Perkins got her movie debut in Edward Zwick's About Last Night..., which was followed by her breakthrough role as Tom Hanks’ love interest in Big. Eventually, she was cast in Avalon, The Doctor, where she played a terminal cancer patient and received rave reviews, The Flintstones, and He Said, She Said.
On the small screen, Perkins made her debut in For Their Own Good and soon found herself gaining more exposure as she was cast on the comedy series Battery Park, movie If These Walls Could Talk 2 and Showtime’s Weeds where she played Celia Hodes—a role she played for five seasons and received several Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
- About Last Night (1986)
- From The Hip (1987)
- Sweet Hearts Dance (1988)
- Big (1988)
- Avalon (1990)
- Love at Large (1990)
- The Doctor (1991)
- He Said, She Said (1991)
- Indian Summer (1993)
- Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
- The Flintstones (1994)
- Moonlight and Valentino (1995)
- Cloned (1997)
- From the Earth to the Moon (1998)
- Crazy in Alabama (1999)
- 28 Days (2000)
- Battery Park (2000)
- What Girls Learn (2001)
- Cats & Dogs (2001)
- Try Seventeen (2002)
- Finding Nemo (2003)
- Jiminy Glick in Lalawood (2004)
- Speak (2004)
- The Ring Two (2005)
- Fierce People (2005)
- Must Love Dogs (2005)
- The Thing About My Folks (2005)
- Monk (2009)
- Hop (2011)