Riley Emilia Voelkel was born in Elk Grove, California, Riley Voelkel's family moved to Calgary, Alberta, Canada when she was a child and she grew up in Sacramento, California. As a youth she was heavily involved in athletics, her family and schoolwork. Riley was discovered during a modeling audition and she lost no time in taking advantage of that opportunity. She moved to Los Angeles and threw herself into the acting world. With her natural talent for the arts it did not take long before she was booking commercials and acting full time. Her first acting role was as a club girl in the Oscar nominated film The Social Network, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. From there Riley's career took off and she quickly booked roles in such hit series as The Mentalist, Glee, and American Horror Story. She worked once again with Aaron Sorkin when she was cast as student turned assistant Jenna Johnson in HBO's award-winning The Newsroom opposite Jeff Daniels. More roles followed culminating in perhaps her best-known role to date, Freya Mikaelson in CW's The Vampire Diaries spin-off, The Originals. Voelkel played Freya for four seasons (2014 to 2018) and reclaimed her role when she guest-starred on the second season of Legacies. Voelkel was then cast in the recurring role of Jenna Cameron in CW's science fiction drama series, Roswell, New Mexico. From there she has taken on her most challenging role yet in the Jerry Bruckheimer produced Starz series Hightown, that of Renee Segna, former exotic dancer and fiancé to a drug kingpin.