Merle Dandridge is a Japanese-American actress who was born in Okinawa, Japan. Dandridge is primarily a stage actress, but has had several roles in television. She has gained a wider audience as the voice of Alyx Vance in the award-winning action game Half-Life 2 and its sequels, Episode One, Episode Two. Her father was an African-American US serviceman from Memphis and her mother was a local Okinawan of Korean and Japanese descent. As well as Okinawa, Dandridge has lived in Sacramento, California, at Beale Air Force Base, and later at Offutt Air Force Base (home to the then-Strategic Air Command) in Bellevue, Nebraska, where she spent the majority of her childhood. She attended Papillion La Vista High School and participated in the play production class and theater department there. She then attended the Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University (currently called the Chicago College of Performing Arts) with a scholarship that she earned at the International Thespian Festival.

Filmography

• 2025The Electric State — News Anchor
• 2024Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II — Marlene (archive footage) (uncredited)
• Secret Level — Liz Mutton (voice)
• Citadel — Joana
• The Last of Us — Marlene
• 2022Block Party — Crystal Maitland
• 2020Blithe Spirit — Elvira
• The Flight Attendant — Kim Hammond
• 2020The Right Girl
• Truth Be Told — Zarina Killebrew
• 2018Resurrect — Alice
• Station 19 — Natasha Ross
• Greenleaf — Grace Greenleaf
• Rosewood — Charlotte
• Stalker — Dean Lisa Miner
• Star-Crossed — Vega
• The Night Shift — Gwen Gaskin
• Perception — Robyn Sherman
• The Newsroom — Maria Guerrero
• Love Bites — Krista
• Ringer — Anabel Morris
• Suits — Leah
• 2010Matadors — Brooke Comas
• Nikita — Zoe
• The Deep End — Jennifer Hutchins
• Lie to Me — D.A. Jill Ottinger
• NCIS: Los Angeles — CIA Officer Nicole Borders
• 2008Nothing But the Truth — Celia
• Sons of Anarchy — Rita Roosevelt
• The Mentalist — Lydia Faulk
• 2007I'm Paige Wilson — Gloria
• The Comeback — Ridley Macintosh
• NCIS — Marcy Carruthers
• CSI: Miami — Stacy Garrett
• 24 — Kristen Smith
• Angel — Lacey Shepard
• Third Watch — Nikki

Appearances as themselves (4)

• 2020The Disney Family Singalong - Volume II — Self
• The Tamron Hall Show — Self - Guest
• 2016Disney's Broadway Hits at London's Royal Albert Hall — Herself
• 2014The Last of Us: One Night Live — Self / Marlene