Early life and education
Vayntrub was born into a secular Jewish family of Ukrainian-Jewish heritage in Tashkent, then part of the Soviet Union. When she was two years old, her parents immigrated to the United States as refugees fleeing antisemitism, settling in West Hollywood, California. To help support the family financially, she began appearing in Barbie television commercials at age five.1
She attended Beverly Hills High School but left after her sophomore year, subsequently obtaining her GED.1 She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of California, San Diego, and later trained in improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles.1
Career
Vayntrub made her acting debut appearing in three episodes of the NBC medical drama ER in 1995.3 She subsequently co-created the YouTube comedy channel Live Prude Girls with comedian Stevie Nelson, which ranked among the top 100 channels on the platform according to NewMediaRockstars.1
Her breakthrough to mainstream recognition came in 2013 when she began playing Lily Adams, an upbeat and technically knowledgeable AT&T saleswoman, in a long-running series of television commercials. The campaign ran from 2013 to 2016; she reprised the role in 2020.1 Lily Adams became one of the most recognizable commercial characters on American television during that period.
On television, she starred as Tina Shukshin, a crew member aboard a deep-space vessel, on the Yahoo! Screen science-fiction comedy Other Space (2015).3 She made appearances in CollegeHumor videos and guest-starred on Silicon Valley.3 Her most prominent dramatic television role came with a recurring part as Sloane Sandburg on the NBC drama This Is Us (2016-2017).3
Vayntrub was cast as the Marvel superhero Squirrel Girl (Doreen Green) in a pilot for the NBC comedy series New Warriors in 2017; the pilot was not picked up to series.1 She has since voiced the character in multiple installments of the Marvel Rising animated franchise beginning in 2018, in a six-episode scripted podcast produced with Sirius XM, and in the 2024 video game Marvel Rivals.1
Her other screen credits include Werewolves Within (2021), Die Hart (2020), and Out of Office (2022, Comedy Central).3 In 2026, she appeared in a supporting role as Olesya Ilyukhina, a Russian engineer aboard the Hail Mary spacecraft, in Project Hail Mary, the adaptation of Andy Weir's novel directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, starring alongside Ryan Gosling.4
Ghostbusters
Vayntrub played the Subway Rat Woman in Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), a pedestrian passerby at the entrance to the 50th Street Subway Station. The character appears in Chapter 14 of the film, during the Ghost Invasion triggered when Rowan North releases New York City's ghosts en masse. As a surge of Subway Ghost Rats pours out of the station entrance, the Subway Rat Woman cringes and recoils in visible disgust.2
Her casting drew on an established working relationship with director Paul Feig. Vayntrub had previously appeared on Feig's Other Space (2015), and several of her co-stars from that series, Karan Soni, Neil Casey, Eugene Cordero, and Bess Rous, also appeared in the 2016 film.1
Personal life
In January 2016, after visiting Greece and meeting Syrian refugee families firsthand, Vayntrub co-founded "Can't Do Nothing," a website and social media movement aimed at raising awareness of the European migrant crisis.5
In 2020, she became the target of a harassment campaign involving manipulated images posted to AT&T social media channels. AT&T publicly stated they would "not tolerate the inappropriate comments and harassment."6 Vayntrub addressed the situation publicly, speaking candidly about the emotional toll of the experience.
She is married and has one son; she has kept their identities private.1
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
-
"Milana Vayntrub," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milana_Vayntrub.
-
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), dir. Paul Feig. Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures. Chapter 14.
-
IMDb, "Milana Vayntrub," accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2168927/.
-
"Project Hail Mary (film)," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film). Olesya Ilyukhina is described as "a Russian engineer on board the Hail Mary."
-
HuffPost Impact, "#CantDoNothing: Milana Vayntrub on the Syrian Refugee Crisis" (2016), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cantdonothing-milana-vayn_b_9138440.
-
Deadline, "AT&T's 'Lily Adams,' aka Actress Milana Vayntrub, Asks Online Harassers To Stop" (August 2020), https://deadline.com/2020/08/att-lily-milana-vayntrub-online-harassment-1203026940/. AT&T statement: "We will not tolerate the inappropriate comments and harassment of Milana Vayntrub, the talented actor that portrays Lily in our ads."
