Kidder, one of five children, was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, the daughter of Jocelyn Mary "Jill" (nee Wilson), a history teacher, and Kendall Kidder, an explosives expert and engineer. Kidder also spent time growing up in Labrador City, Newfoundland and Labrador. Her mother was from British Columbia, Canada, and her father was from New Mexico, United States. She is of Welsh and English descent.

In 2000, Kidder played Eileen Canboro in Apocalypse III: Tribulation, a Christian film dealing with Christian eschatology and the Rapture. Kidder stated afterwards that she did not realize until she was on the set that the movie was serious. Also that year she appeared in three episodes of Peter Benchley's Amazon (1999 TV series), playing a striking role as an insane Canadian woman bent on domination of all the local tribes. In 2001, she played the abusive mother of a serial killer in "Pique", an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2002, she appeared alongside Crispin Glover and Vanessa Redgrave in the film adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Kidder appeared on Broadway in The Vagina Monologues in December 2002, and toured with the show for two years. After this, she appeared on Robson Arms, a Canadian sitcom set in an apartment block in Vancouver's west end. She played a quirky neighbor of the main cast members. She also had a cameo in Rich Hall's Election Special on BBC Four. In 2006, Kidder played Jenny Schecter's mother Sandy Ziskin on The L Word, a repressed Jewish woman coming to terms with her daughter's sexuality. In 2007, Kidder began appearing on the television series Brothers and Sisters, playing Emily Craft. In 2004, Kidder briefly returned to the Superman franchise in two episodes of the television series Smallville, as Dr. Bridgette Crosby, an emissary of Dr. Swann (played by her Superman co-star, Christopher Reeve). She portrayed an embattled guidance counselor in the 2008 gay-themed mystery film On the Other Hand, Death, as well as a supporting role as Laurie Strode's therapist, in Rob Zombie's Halloween II (2009). In an interview with the LGBT publication The Advocate, Kidder discussed her later career choices, saying: "I'm not choosy at all! I'll do practically anything. I'm the biggest whore on the block. I live in a little town in Montana, and you have to drag me out of here to get to L.A., so I'm not readily available. But unless it's something sexist or cruel, I just love to work. I've done all sorts of things, but you just haven't seen them because they're often very bad and shown at 4 in the morning." In 2015 Kidder won an Emmy award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming for her performance in R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour.

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