Melissa Benoist

Benoist was born in Houston, Texas, to Julie and Jim Benoist, a physician. They divorced when she was thirteen years old. Her paternal great-grandfather was of French descent. She has two sisters: Jessica, a novelist, and Kristina, an ecological scientist, and five half-siblings from her father's remarriage. She was raised mostly by her mother in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, after her parents' separation. Growing up in Colorado, a large part of her childhood was spent exploring national parks and immersing herself in nature.

She started dance classes at the age of three, focusing on jazz, ballet, and tap. When she was four years old, her aunt put her in a church play she was directing; after that, she began doing community children's theatre in her hometown.

As a teenager, Benoist performed anonymously at Disneyland in various medleys of musical songs for three summers with the Academy of Theatre Arts, a musical theatre school she was attending, located in Littleton, Colorado, run by Paul Dwyer and Alann Worley. She performed locally in a number of theatrical productions, including A Month in the Country, Cinderella, A Chorus Line, and Bye Bye Birdie at the Town Hall Arts Center, a professional theatre located in the Denver metro area. Instead of attending high school graduation parties, she performed the play Evita with other cast members at the former Country Dinner Playhouse.

In 2006, The Denver Post named Benoist one of Colorado's five "Can't Miss Kids". She graduated from Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, in 2007, and then moved to New York City to pursue a career in musical theatre. She initially attended Marymount Manhattan College for the BFA musical theatre program but in her sophomore year, she switched majors to theatre, due to her admiration for 19th-century Russian plays. She graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts in 2011. While attending college, she played Millie Dilmount in an urban off-off-Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Rosalind in As You Like It at the Theresa Lang Theatre.