Graduated from Asheboro High School and began studying acting at the University of North Carolina School of The Arts in Winston-Salem, NC in 2010, finishing in May 2014.
After initially moving to New York to pursue theater, she received her breakthrough role as Anna in the ABC series Once Upon a Time. She then booked a starring role in Freeform's Dead of Summer.
She played the live-action role of Anna that was based on the character of the same name from the animated Disney film Frozen. Kristen Bell provided the voice of Anna in the film.
She was born to parents Dean Franklin Lail and Kay Lurene Surratt in Williamson County, Texas, later moving to Asheboro, Randolph County, North Carolina. She has a sister named Kathryn Dean Lail.
She was cast as a series regular for David Fincher's planned HBO series Video Synchronicity in 2015 but the project was eventually passed on by HBO.
She studied acting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Daughter of Dean Franklin Lail and wife Kay Lurene Surratt and sister of Kathryn Dean Lail.
Her only previous acting experience was in a couple of student film productions.