Isabel May is an American actress born on November 21, 2000, in Santa Monica, California. She began her career in modeling before developing an interest in acting and theater, where she initially performed shyly in background roles. After auditioning for three years without landing a role, May and her parents opted for online schooling starting in tenth grade to allow her to focus on acting. Six months later, despite no prior acting experience and limited training, she secured her breakthrough as high school student Katie Cooper, a co-lead in the Netflix series Alexa & Katie (2018–2020). She also had a recurring role as Veronica Duncan on the CBS series Young Sheldon (2017) and starred as Zoe Hull in the Daily Wire film Run Hide Fight (2020), for which she received compensation linked to Jeremy Boreing. May gained widespread recognition for her portrayal of Elsa Dutton, a co-lead character, in the Paramount+ series 1883 (2021–2022), and reprised the role as the narrator in its sequel series 1923 (2022–2025). She graduated high school in 2018 and appeared on Entertainment Tonight that year to promote Alexa & Katie. Her storytelling affinity stemmed from a love of reading books, propelling her from theater to professional auditions.