General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20265 min read

Madeleine Martin

Madeleine Martin (born 1993) is an American actress known for playing Becca Moody, the daughter of David Duchovny's character, on the Showtime comedy-drama Californication, for voicing Fionna in the Adventure Time franchise, and for a series of Broadway roles that began when she was a child.

Key fact	Detail
Born	1993, New York, New York, USA¹
Signature TV role	Becca Moody on Californication (Showtime), 2007–2014, 74 episodes²
Voice roles	JoJo in JoJo's Circus (2003–2011, 59 episodes); Fionna in Adventure Time (2010) and lead of Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (2023)²^•³
Broadway roles	Joe in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (2003), Girl in The Pillowman (2005), Jean Fordham in August: Osage County (2007), Millie Owens in Picnic (2013)³
Horror series role	Shelley Godfrey on Netflix's Hemlock Grove, 2014–2015, 18 episodes²
Film ratings	The Discoverers (2012) 85% on Rotten Tomatoes; Legendary (2010) 20%¹
Academic post	Teaches performance at Florida State University's School of Theatre; MFA in Performance Creation from York University, Toronto⁴

Early life and stage career

Martin was born in New York to two college professors and has two older brothers⁵. As a child she staged puppet shows behind a small wooden theater with red curtains, and she has said that performing, rather than the audience, drew her in first⁴.

Broadway work came early. At the age of ten she played the title role in the Roundabout revival of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (2003), followed by the Girl in the original Broadway production of The Pillowman (2005) and Jean Fordham in the original Broadway production of August: Osage County (2007), for which she received a National Youth Theater Award³. Her other stage credits include A Christmas Carol, the Atlantic Theater Company's off-Broadway Harper Regan (2012), Millie Owens in Roundabout's 2013 Broadway revival of Picnic, and Denise in the 2016 LCT3 world premiere of Samuel D. Hunter's The Harvest³. She also performed at Lincoln Center in Scenes de Ballet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Nutcracker³.

Californication

Martin was cast as Becca Moody, daughter of Duchovny's dissolute writer Hank Moody, on Californication, appearing in 74 episodes from 2007 to 2014². A 2009 Los Angeles Times profile described the unusual position of a teenage actress on a series with strong adult themes: her mother, Margaret Martin, held the remote and fast-forwarded past the raunchy material, Martin read only about half the scripts, and she listened to her iPod during table reads when explicit content was discussed⁶.

Showrunner Tom Kapinos said her audition tape stood out for its look and manner, comparing her to "Emily the Strange meets Christina Ricci or a young Janeane Garofalo"; Duchovny praised her preparation, saying she "never makes a mistake" and is ready to shoot at the table read⁶. The role required her to leave ballet school training and to skip a return to Broadway one fall to prepare for the SAT⁶.

Animation and later television

Martin's voice work spans children's television and adult animation. She voiced the title character in JoJo's Circus from 2003 to 2011 and contributed additional voices to the animated film Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)²^•¹. In 2010 she began voicing Fionna, the gender-swapped counterpart of Finn, in Adventure Time¹.

The spin-off Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, in which she voices the lead role of Fionna Campbell, premiered in 2023 and was renewed for a second season in December 2023³. Martin has called Fionna her favorite character to play, describing her as someone who "thrives on adventure and jumping into challenges"⁴.

Her live-action television work after Californication includes Shelley Godfrey, a role requiring three hours of prosthetics, on the Netflix horror series Hemlock Grove (2014–2015)²^•⁷, plus guest appearances on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, What We Do in the Shadows, The Good Wife, Criminal Minds, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Hope & Faith, and Saturday Night Live³^•⁸.

Film

Martin's film roles include Zoe in the independent comedy-drama The Discoverers (2012), her highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes at 85 percent, Lucy in Refuge (2012), and Luli Stringfellow in the Patricia Clarkson sports drama Legendary (2010), rated 20 percent¹. She also appeared in the Lifetime Movie Network television movie My Daughter Must Live¹.

Teaching and research

After earning a Master of Fine Arts in Performance Creation from York University in Toronto, Martin joined Florida State University's School of Theatre, where she teaches performance as Assistant Director of Performance⁴. Her research examines the methods of voice coach Kristen Linklater, focusing on how releasing physical tension can free an actor's voice, an approach she connects to her own voiceover work⁴.

Other people with the same name

The name Madeleine Martin also belongs to a Swedish actress, born in 1991, whose credits include Breaking Surface (2020), Easy Money II (2012), and the Swedish series Black Lake and Jana – Marked for Life⁹^•¹⁰. Filmography databases sometimes mix credits between the two.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 2000s onward › Surnames M to Ma

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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