2024 HUMANITAS PRIZES

About the Hosts

June Diane Raphael is an actress, comedian, screenwriter, and producer who has continued to use her platform to champion female empowerment, redefine aging, find humor in life's challenges, emphasize the importance of using one's voice, and celebrate the strength of sisterhood and community.

Her roles in both film and television have often centered on strong, multidimensional female characters, encouraging audiences to challenge stereotypes and embrace the power of women in all their diversity.

Currently, NBC is developing Something Wicked, a multi-camera comedy starring June Diane Raphael and written and executive produced by Raphael and Dickinson creator Alena Smith. In addition, Amazon MGM Studios has ordered a pilot for DINKS, an improvisational style multi-cam comedy starring and executive produced by June Diane Raphael and her husband Paul Scheer.

June is most well known for her work on the long running Netflix series, Grace and Frankie, playing Brianna, Jane Fonda’s bold entrepreneurial daughter. She has appeared in recurring roles on popular TV shows like the award winning series, Abbott Elementary (ABC), The Morning Show (Apple TV+), Everything's Trash (Freeform), Black Monday (Showtime), American Dad!, and Big Mouth. Other TV credits include Frasier (Paramount+), Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), and Fresh Off the Boat (ABC). Her film roles include the independent film, Scrambled, which premiered at SXSW 2023, 8-Bit Christmas, Long Shot, Blockers, The Disaster Artist, Unfinished Business, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Girl Most Likely. Other notable achievements include the 2013 Sundance Film, Ass Backwards, which she co-wrote and starred in with her creative partner, Casey Wilson. She was also recently seen in the Casey Wilson directed short, “Daddio”.

Off screen, June is the co-host of one of the biggest hit podcasts, How Did This Get Made?, with Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas, which is now a live show sold out nationwide. June also co-hosts The Deep Dive podcast with her best friend Jessica St Clair. The Deep Dive, where the ladies ‘deep dive’ into a wide range of topics such as motherhood and family, to feminism. The Deep Dive captures the friendship of two women trying to survive adult womanhood.

In 2017, Raphael founded The Jane Club, a community for women and caretakers in Los Angeles. The Jane Club was the first shared workspace that offered full-time childcare. In 2019, she co-authored Represent: The Woman’s Guide to Running for Office and Changing the World, an energetic, interactive, and inspiring step-by-step guide showing how to run for the approximately 500,000 elected offices in the US which Secretary Clinton referred to as "a wonderful resource for women as they think about taking the leap".

June found her niche and love of comedy after college when she went to work for UCB, first in New York and later in Los Angeles. It was in New York where Raphael and Wilson wrote their two-woman sketch show, Rode Hard and Put Away Wet, that went on to run for 3 years at UCB.

Paul Scheer is a SAG Award-winning actor known for his work on FX’s The League, Black Monday, Veep and Fresh off the Boat. He co-created MTV’s cult sketch series Human Giant and created the Adult Swim series NTSF:SD:SUV::. He is a director who has won Clios for his commercial work with CANN and recently partnered up with 988, Oklahoma’s Mental Health Hotline for a Super Bowl Commercial. His award-winning podcast How Did This Get Made? walked away with back to back Ambies for Best Comedy Podcast. He’s currently in post production on his latest documentary and is shooting an improvised multicam pilot for Freevee with Marta Kauffman. His memoir Joyful Recollections of Trauma (HarperOne) was released in May 2024.