Sarah Drew was born on October 1, 1980, in Stony Brook, New York, and grew up in a family in which religion, education and the arts all played important roles. Her father, the Rev. Charles Drew, served as a senior pastor at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in New York City, while her mother, Jeannie Drew, worked as a science teacher. Long before millions of television viewers came to know her as the earnest and frequently overwhelmed Dr. April Kepner on Grey's Anatomy, Drew was developing an interest in performance that would take her from voice acting and the stage to a remarkably steady career in television and film.

Drew attended The Stony Brook School on Long Island before studying drama at the University of Virginia. She graduated in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama, but her professional acting career had actually begun several years earlier. While still a teenager, she supplied the voice of Stacy Rowe in the animated MTV series Daria. Stacy was a member of the Fashion Club and considerably less self-assured than some of her formidable companions, giving Drew an early opportunity to portray the anxious, good-hearted qualities she would later bring to several live-action characters. Her work on Daria and related productions meant that Drew already had a recognizable television character on her résumé before she had finished college.

After graduating, Drew continued pursuing both stage and screen work. She appeared professionally in the stage production Vincent in Brixton, playing Eugenie in a story inspired by the period Vincent van Gogh spent living in London. Her theatrical background provided the sort of disciplined foundation that would serve her well in television, where actors may be expected to move from comedy to grief to emergency surgery in remarkably short order—and sometimes before lunch.

One of Drew's first major television opportunities arrived with Everwood, the WB drama set in the fictional Colorado town of the same name. She played Hannah Rogers, initially appearing as a recurring character before becoming a regular member of the cast. Hannah was intelligent, shy, deeply religious and often uncertain of herself, and Drew gave the character a combination of humor and vulnerability that made her an important part of the show's later seasons. Everwood provided Drew with sustained exposure on network television and demonstrated that she could develop a character over an extended storyline rather than simply make an impression in a single guest appearance.

Drew subsequently accumulated guest roles across an impressive collection of television programs. Her credits included appearances in Cold Case, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Medium, Castle, Supernatural, Private Practice and other series. She also appeared in the feature film Radio, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ed Harris, and continued adding both dramatic and comedic work to her résumé. Like many successful television actors, Drew spent several years becoming one of those familiar faces who seemed to turn up everywhere shortly before landing the role that would permanently change her career.

She also made a memorable appearance in the first season of Mad Men as Kitty Romano, the wife of Sterling Cooper art director Salvatore Romano. Although her time on the series was relatively brief, Kitty's marriage formed part of Sal's complicated storyline concerning his concealed sexuality and the expectations surrounding marriage and identity in the early 1960s. Drew's performance gave Kitty warmth and sympathy, particularly as the character gradually sensed an emotional distance in her marriage that she could not fully understand.

Then, in 2009, Sarah Drew walked into Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital and discovered what generations of Grey's Anatomy characters had already learned: employment there should probably come with hazard pay.

Drew first appeared as Dr. April Kepner during the sixth season of Grey's Anatomy. April arrived as one of the residents transferred from Mercy West following its merger with Seattle Grace. Initially, the character could be nervous, awkward, excessively eager to please and capable of irritating her new colleagues. She was also ambitious, intelligent and determined to prove herself. Drew was originally brought onto the series in a recurring capacity, and April was even fired from the hospital before eventually being rehired. In 2010, Drew became a series regular, beginning a long run that transformed April from a supporting resident into one of the show's most developed characters.

April's evolution became one of the more substantial character journeys in the series. She progressed professionally from an insecure resident to a highly capable trauma surgeon, with Drew gradually stripping away some of the nervousness that had defined the character's earliest appearances. April remained emotional and occasionally chaotic, but she also became exceptionally effective during emergencies. Her Christian faith became an important element of the character, affecting her relationships, decisions and responses to tragedy. Drew, herself a Christian, has spoken about the unusual opportunity of portraying a person of faith as a complicated human being rather than reducing the character to a television stereotype.

A major part of April's story involved her relationship with Dr. Jackson Avery, played by Jesse Williams. What began as friendship developed into romance and eventually one of the series' most complicated relationships. Their storyline included April abandoning her wedding to Matthew Taylor after Jackson declared his feelings for her, followed by April and Jackson eloping and marrying. Because this was Grey's Anatomy, however, happiness was not permitted to remain unattended for very long. Their marriage faced profound challenges, including the devastating loss of their son Samuel shortly after his birth.

The Samuel storyline became some of Drew's most emotionally demanding work on the series. April and Jackson learned during the pregnancy that their baby had osteogenesis imperfecta type II, a severe and typically fatal form of brittle bone disease. They chose to induce labor, and Samuel died shortly after being born. The storyline examined grief, faith, anger and the very different ways two parents can respond to the same loss. Drew's performance during this period was widely noted by viewers as one of April Kepner's defining arcs, taking a character who had once been known partly for nervous chatter into exceptionally difficult dramatic territory.

April later served overseas as a trauma surgeon with the U.S. Army, a development that further altered the character. She returned tougher and more confident in emergency situations, but her experiences also contributed to difficulties in her marriage. April and Jackson eventually divorced, although their lives remained connected through their daughter, Harriet. Drew continued to explore April's faith and doubts, including a later crisis in which a series of tragedies caused the character to question beliefs that had previously provided stability throughout her life.

Drew departed Grey's Anatomy as a series regular in 2018 after nine seasons associated with the program, although April was not killed off—a notable achievement for anyone who has spent that much time within commuting distance of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The character left her hospital position to concentrate on providing medical care to homeless communities in Seattle. Drew subsequently returned for guest appearances, allowing viewers to see later developments in April's life and once again bringing her together with Jackson Avery. IMDb credits Drew with more than 200 episodes of Grey's Anatomy, making April Kepner by far her most extensive screen role.

Although Grey's Anatomy became the centerpiece of her television career, Drew continued working beyond the series. She starred in the 2014 comedy Moms' Night Out, playing Allyson, a mother attempting to enjoy one peaceful evening with friends while an increasingly ridiculous sequence of disasters develops around them. The film gave Drew an opportunity to carry a comedy and make use of the frantic timing that had occasionally surfaced beneath April Kepner's surgical scrubs.

Drew has also become closely associated with television movies, particularly romantic and holiday productions. Her credits include Christmas Pen Pals, Twinkle All the Way, Christmas in Vienna, One Summer, Reindeer Games Homecoming and Branching Out. These projects allowed her to move comfortably into leading roles centered on family, relationships and romance, providing a considerably lower mortality rate than her former workplace in Seattle.

She expanded her work behind the camera as well. Drew wrote and executive produced the Lifetime holiday movie Reindeer Games Homecoming, in which she also starred opposite Justin Bruening. The project demonstrated an increasing interest in developing stories rather than simply performing in them. Her career has consequently grown to include producing and writing alongside acting, giving her greater involvement in deciding what stories reach the screen and how her characters are presented.

Drew returned to series television with Cruel Summer, appearing in the anthology drama's second season as Debbie Landry. The mystery-driven series was considerably darker than her holiday-film work and offered another example of the variety that has characterized her career outside Grey's Anatomy. She has continued balancing television movies, independent projects and series work while remaining closely associated with April Kepner, a character whose popularity has persisted well beyond Drew's original departure from the show.

Away from the screen, Drew married Peter Lanfer, a university lecturer, in 2002. The couple have two children. She has frequently discussed the importance of family and faith in her life, while also speaking candidly about the practical realities of maintaining a career in an industry built around auditions, uncertain employment and the occasional fictional hospital disaster.

Sarah Drew's career is an interesting example of how a single television role can become enormously important without completely defining the performer who played it. She was already a professional actor before Grey's Anatomy, with Daria, theater, Everwood, Mad Men and numerous guest appearances behind her. Since leaving the series as a regular, she has continued acting while adding writing and producing to her work.

Still, April Kepner remains difficult to separate from Sarah Drew, and understandably so. Over many seasons, Drew took a character who initially seemed destined to be the nervous new doctor and developed her into a trauma surgeon, mother, friend and woman whose certainty about herself and her faith was repeatedly challenged. April was fired, rehired, married, divorced, nearly killed and subjected to enough emotional upheaval to exhaust several ordinary lifetimes. She survived it all, which on Grey's Anatomy practically qualifies as a medical miracle.