Arianda was born in Manhattan, New York City. Her parents were born in Germany to Ukrainian families. She grew up in Clifton, New Jersey and Heidelberg, Germany. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program in 2009.
Arianda made her Broadway debut in April 2011 in the lead role of Billie Dawn in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday, with James Belushi and Robert Sean Leonard. She appeared Off-Broadway as Vanda Jourdain in the comedy-drama play Venus in Fur in 2010. The play then transferred to Broadway, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, in early November 2011, and her performance received critical acclaim.
In 2014, she starred in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of Tales From Red Vienna. She has appeared in several films, including Win Win, Tower Heist, Midnight in Paris, Rob the Mob, and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. In January 2015, she was cast as Molly, the wife of Will Graham (played by her former Broadway co-star Hugh Dancy) for the third season of Hannibal. Arianda starred in Fool for Love at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in July 2014, with Sam Rockwell and direction by Daniel Aukin. Arianda and Rockwell reprised their roles on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in 2015. In 2016, she played Agnes Stark in the film Florence Foster Jenkins. Also in 2016, Arianda co-starred in the Amazon Studios legal series Goliath.
