Part of The Goonies featuring Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, and Ke Huy Quan.
Rise to Fame
She was a working actress at 10, shooting Calvin Klein ads before The Goonies (1985) made her a recognizable face. That part didn't make her a career. Running on Empty (1988), shot while she and River Phoenix were actually dating, was the move that landed her in a serious Oscar-nominated film alongside one of the most electrifying young performances of the decade. Parenthood (1989) followed. The industry defaulted to 'rebellious teen' for most of the '90s, so she went to Steppenwolf, joined the ensemble in 1998, and built a theater career that eventually earned her three consecutive Tony nominations.
In the Spotlight
Three consecutive Tony nominations (2007-2009), including for her first-ever musical, put her in the serious-theater category that most TV actors don't bother with. The Emmy she won for The Good Wife in 2012 was for a guest role as a sharp litigator who outmaneuvered the leads in every scene she appeared in. Task (HBO, 2025), a Mark Ruffalo vehicle she reliably steals, is her most visible stretch in years. Variety called her 'flinty and fabulous.' Netflix's East of Eden is next.
Side Notes
Her parents met performing in Hair on Broadway and she was essentially conceived backstage. In 2006 she performed in Shining City at the Biltmore, the same theater where her parents had met in Hair, which is either closure or irony depending on how you read it. She co-founded A Is For, a nonprofit that uses the Scarlet Letter's 'A' as a deliberate reclamation for abortion rights advocacy, and has publicly disclosed having had more than one abortion. For someone raised by a single mother in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, she's done a lot with the material she started with.