Early Life
Keener was born in Miami, Florida, the third of five children of Evelyn and Jim Keener, a manager of an automotive store. She is of Irish descent on her father's side and of Lebanese descent on her mother's. Keener was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools. Her sister Elizabeth Keener is also an actress.
Keener attended Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts, where she lived with an aunt in order to save on room and board, feeling out of place among her more privileged peers. Keener majored in English and history, enrolling in a theater course only when she was unable to get into a photography class. Her first theatrical production was the Wendy Wasserstein play, Uncommon Women and Others, during her Junior year at Wheaton. She graduated with her B.A. from Wheaton College in 1983.
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