Actor and comedian Milana Vayntrub began her professional screen acting career in 1995 when she appeared on a few episodes of the hit TV medical drama “ER.” She was only about eight at the time. As we all may know, Vayntrub later became recognized worldwide when she began appearing in a series of TV ads for AT&T in 2013, playing the helpful clerk Lily.
While the ads brought Vayntrub a lot of career exposure, they also attracted a new audience of weirdo creeps. At first, a lot of the comments about Vayntrub were seemingly innocuous, with some blogs calling her the day’s “hot ad girl.” Unfortunately, a lot of the comments turned pretty gross pretty fast, and both AT&T and Vayntrub had to block comments and ask for the harassment to cease.
Luckily, Vayntrub continued to work during her AT&T stint, appearing in shows like “Other Space” and “@midnight,” as well as films like “Ghostbusters” (2016) and, more notably, the acclaimed horror comedy video game movie “Werewolves Within.” She’s since appeared in the hit sci-fi film “Project Hail Mary.”
In 2018, Vayntrub filmed an unused pilot for a live-action Marvel TV series titled “New Warriors,” playing the popular superhero Doreen Green, aka. Squirrel Girl. “New Warriors” was ambitious and was intended to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it was ultimately shelved. Despite “New Warriors” being abandoned, though, Vayntrub still got to voice Squirrel Girl in the animated franchise “Marvel Rising” shortly after that.
When interviewed about her work on “Marvel Rising” at the 2019 WonderCon, Vayntrub revealed that she adores playing Squirrel Girl because it finally allows her to be funny. Indeed, she had missed being able to do comedy as an actor prior to that.
Milana Vayntrub likes voicing Squirrel Girl because she gets to show off her comedic chops
According to a profile by Uproxx, Milana Vayntrub studied comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles, and her deep-cut fans can tell you all about her YouTube comedy project Live Prude Girls (which she co-founded with Stevie Nelson). One can see that Vayntrub has always been drawn to comedy and comedy projects (and that she’s really quite funny), so Squirrel Girl provides her some creative opportunities.
When Showbiz Junkies asked Vayntrub about why she loves playing the character at WonderCon 2019, the actor was enthused, replying:
“The thing that is so wonderful is that she’s very funny. You’re going to be in a recording booth for hours and yelling and “hi-ya”ing and GRAH! and pushing yourself physically […] it’s really just nice to have a joke. […] It feels so good to make people laugh. You’re like, ‘I did it! My brain fired and synapse-d in a way that worked to trigger something in someone else that made them feel good! The fact that you can do that as a job is the best.”
One can watch episodes of “Marvel Rising” on YouTube. Vayntrub also reprised Squirrel Girl for the 2024 video game “Marvel Rivals.” So, again, even though the “New Warriors” pilot never saw the light of day, Vayntrub still gets to play the Squirrel Girl character, seemingly in perpetuity. Sadly, though, she doesn’t seem to be part of the XXL cast of the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.”
On top of that, Vayntrub managed to turn her audience of creepers into an asset. In order to raise money for the 2025 California fires, she started a side hustle called OnlyPhilanthropy, selling tastefully “risqué” photos of herself. She raised over $500,000.
