Banks grew up in Western Massachusetts and is an honors graduate (1996) of the University of Pennsylvania. She trained post-graduate at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. In 2003, Banks converted to Judaism not long before marrying her Jewish husband, businessman Max Handelman--a very nice-looking guy. They had been dating since college.
Their Jewish wedding was featured in Instyle magazine. Apparently Banks' mother approved of the wedding and conversion. Instyle reported that she sewed the couple's wedding canopy, or chuppah:
Banks's mother even made the chuppah--which included the groom's baby blanket, Elizabeth's great-grandmother's hankie and T-shirts from the couple's alma mater.
Sounds like a really cool chuppah to me.
Elizabeth Banks played a non-Jewish woman engaged to marry a Jewish man in the 2004 indie film, Heights. InterfaithFamily.com ran a review of the film when it came out.