Anna Torv portrayed Olivia Dunham in the Fox science fiction series Fringe, which ran from 2008 to 2013, a role that brought her sustained recognition in the field of television drama. For that performance, she earned four consecutive Saturn Awards for Best Actress on Television, marking a consistent acknowledgment of her work across the full run of the series.

Torv was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1978. She was educated at All Saints Anglican School before going on to train at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the professional conservatory that provided the formal foundation for her subsequent career as a film, stage, and television actor. As an Australian citizen working primarily in English-language productions, she moved between American and Australian screens over the course of her career. Following Fringe, she portrayed psychologist Wendy Carr in the Netflix period crime drama Mindhunter, which aired from 2017 to 2019, and later appeared in the ABC drama The Newsreader, for which she won two consecutive AACTA Awards. That series established her profile specifically within Australia.

Torv's later work extended further into prominent international productions. She portrayed Tess in the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us in 2023, and her performance in that role earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. She subsequently stars in the Netflix drama series Territory, which premiered in October 2024, representing her most recent screen credit on record.