Prior to earning critical acclaim for her performance as seasoned E.R. nurse Dana Evans in HBO Max’s medical drama The Pitt, Katherine LaNasa spent decades making her mark on stage and screen.
While her recent Emmy nomination has brought new levels of attention to her career and talent, the star, 58, is no stranger to the spotlight following an early career as a ballerina and headline-making marriage to Hollywood icon Dennis Hopper.
Prior to tying the knot with Hopper, best known for directing and starring in the 1969 road drama Easy Rider, she completed an apprenticeship with the Milwaukee Ballet and went on to dance with Salt Lake City’s Ballet West and the Karole Armitage Ballet.
Her teenage years spent as a company ballerina eventually steered her toward the world of entertainment and a fateful encounter with Hopper, who was 30 years her senior and fresh off an Oscar nomination for Hoosiers (1986).
LaNasa’s relationship with Hopper opened her up to an entirely new world, one she fondly recalls included dinners with Hollywood legends like Roddy McDowall, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, and Liza Minnelli.
‘It was bananas,’ she recently told the New York Times of her life as Mrs. Hopper. ‘I also got a whole education. There is no there there. People at the top feel rejected and not good enough and slighted, and they’re still having to scrap.’
Katherine LaNasa is no stranger to the spotlight following an early career as a ballerina and headline-making marriage to Hollywood icon Dennis Hopper; seen in 1991
Ultimately, she said the biggest lesson was: ‘You’re at the top for the very little moment that you’re at the top.’
Despite building an expansive resume of her own and cultivating countless celebrity connections, she didn’t truly become a household name until The Pitt earlier this year.
While discussing her career with the New York Times, LaNasa acknowledged she’s ‘done big time projects with really great auteurs, and nothing’s happened with them.’
‘On one level, those jobs gave me great confidence. I’m doing a comedy with the top comedy guy and doing this drama with the top drama guy,’ she said. ‘But on the other side, not ever being on a hit or always getting rejected because you’re not enough of a name for things, you sort of think that’s your station.’
While speaking about her Emmy nomination, LaNasa said: ‘It’s nice when something like this happens, when you’re an older person.’
‘I love acting, but also I’m very formed; I’ve been through experiences,’ she said. ‘I’ve sat at the bedside while people died. I’ve given birth. I’ve raised children. I’ve had cancer. So you know, this is just a nice thing,’ she said.
LaNasa is the daughter of a mother who went to nursing school and a father who served as a flight surgeon in Vietnam.
And just six months before she began filming The Pitt, she found herself interacting with doctors and nurses firsthand while battling breast cancer and undergoing radiation.
LaNasa’s relationship with Hopper opened her up to an entirely new world, which included dinners with Hollywood legends like Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis and Liza Minnelli; seen in 1989
Despite building an expansive resume of her own and cultivating countless celebrity connections, she didn’t truly become a household name until The Pitt earlier this year; seen in June 2025
She recently gushed that she loves tackling a ‘complex’ character like Dana Evans, who she described as a ‘real woman’ (seen above in 2025’s The Pitt)
She went on to explain how she’s loved tackling a ‘complex’ character like Dana Evans.
‘The whole thing has been everything that I love,’ she gushed. ‘I get to be like a real woman. I don’t have to wear 100 pairs of Spanx and feel like I have that idealized female pressure on top of trying to do acting. It’s just a really great vibe.’
LaNasa and Hopper first met in 1987, wed in 1990 and divorced in 1992.
During their marriage, they welcomed a son named Henry, now 34.
She went on to marry actor French Stewart in 1998, but they split 11 years later.
Last week, LaNasa celebrated 13 years of marriage with her third husband, Grant Show, who she met on the set of Big Love back in 2006.