Rise to Fame
She spent years in supporting roles before House, including a recurring spot on The West Wing as a call girl putting herself through law school. Bryan Singer saw that performance and wrote Dr. Cuddy specifically for her. Seven seasons of slow-burn tension with Hugh Laurie made the show appointment viewing. When Fox wanted to renew with a pay cut, she declined. Cuddy never came back, and she was the only major cast member absent from the series finale. She left on her own terms.
In the Spotlight
Walking away from House didn't slow her down. She led Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce on Bravo for five seasons, writing and directing episodes herself. A recurring role on The Kominsky Method earned her a second Satellite Award in 2022. Then she picked up a brush during COVID lockdowns and started painting watercolors. Her work is now in LACMA's permanent collection, which is not a sentence most actors can say. The 2025 solo show at Charlie James Gallery was titled after Leonard Cohen. She's not coasting.
Side Notes
At 16, she organized a cheerleader strike against management that forced cheerleaders to stand in uniform at bars. At 19, The New York Times called her New York City's 'Queen of the Night.' At 23, she wrote and composed Positive Me, an AIDS-crisis musical at La MaMa, before mainstream culture was ready to engage with the epidemic. She got her SAG card playing a makeup artist in Oliver Stone's The Doors. The resume reads like someone who's been doing the interesting version of everything since before it was interesting.