Rise to Fame
A Sassy magazine editor spotted her on an East Village street at 17, and within two years Jay McInerney had written a seven-page profile tracking her around NYC. She was walking Miu Miu's runway while filming her debut in Kids (1995). Boys Don't Cry (1999) followed with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The industry assumed everything would open up. It mostly didn't. She'd built her name in indie film, and Hollywood had no obvious place for her.
In the Spotlight
The indie trap that held her back in the 2000s is now exactly what makes her valuable. A Primetime Emmy nomination for playing Kitty Menendez in Netflix's Monsters (2024), a role in FX's Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, and a cast spot alongside Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt. At 51, she's working with bigger directors than she did at 30. The calculus on her reputation has quietly inverted.
Side Notes
Growing up in Darien, Connecticut (she's called it 'super rich and stuffy'), she was babysitting Topher Grace and sweeping tennis courts at a country club. The downtown New York cool came later, self-constructed. When The Brown Bunny (2003) premiered at Cannes to jeers and Roger Ebert's notorious walkout, she absorbed the fallout. Her first-ever studio film offer arrived shortly after. That film was Zodiac.