Blacklist: Why Agnes Keen Looks So Familiar
If you're caught up on "The Blacklist" Seasons 9 and 10, the respective penultimate and final seasons of the long-running thriller series on NBC, you are probably familiar with the character of Agnes Keen, the young daughter of FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) and young confidant to Red Reddington (James Spader). Agnes has been played by a variety of child actors over the course of the series, but in Seasons 9 and 10, she is played by Sami Bray. And it's just possible that despite her young age, you might have recognized Bray from a few other high-profile projects in her filmography.
"The Blacklist" is probably Bray's biggest role to date, with the actor having appeared in the bulk of episodes of Season 9 of the series, but she's actually got a surprising number of credits to her name despite her young age. Here's a breakdown of some of her most widely seen acting gigs prior to "The Blacklist," and where you're most likely to have seen her before.
She made her screen debut in Where Demons Dwell: The Girl in the Cornfield 2, going on to appear in an episode of Gotham
If you're a connoisseur of low-budget horror movies, you might have caught Sami Bray's screen debut in "Where Demons Dwell: The Girl in the Cornfield 2." Bray plays the role of Caroline, the adoptive child brought into the home of the protagonists, but who seems to have some mysterious secret of her own.
After "Where Demons Dwell," Bray appeared in a 2017 short film called "Bizzy and the AIMEs." She followed up that role with an appearance in Season 4, Episode 8 of the Batman prequel series "Gotham." In the episode, she plays "Gruby Child #2," which may be a misspelling of grubby. In any event, this was not a big role, but it is possible that "Gotham" viewers might remember her when they watch her on "The Blacklist."
She did a 2018 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and assorted other projects
In 2018, Sami Bray made her debut in the "Law & Order" franchise, a crucial rite of passage for any working actor. You can see her in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" Season 19, Episode 20. The episode — a harrowing installment titled "The Book of Esther" — is about a religious zealot who has formed a patriarchal cult by imprisoning young women and girls, one of whom is played by Bray.
In one of the episode's most memorable sequences, Detective Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) rescues Bray's character from her home. If you're a hardcore "SVU" fan, it's definitely likely that Bray's performance could have stuck in your mind, causing her to seem familiar in the comparatively lighter fare that is "The Blacklist."
Following her "SVU" episode, Bray continued to work in various short films, music videos, and commercials before landing her "Blacklist" role. These roles include appearances in "The Last Nazi," an episode of "The NonProfitables," and "Over/Under." But these are comparatively low-profile projects not as widely seen as something like "SVU" or "The Blacklist."
She plays Future Karen in four episodes of the Wonder Years reboot
You might think from looking over Sami Bray's acting credits that she for whatever reason has gravitated towards heavy drama and horror roles. But it's not all doom and gloom in her filmography. In fact, her most recent acting credit is in the reboot of "The Wonder Years." Bray has a recurring role on the series in which she gets to show off her comedy chops, appearing as Future Karen on four episodes of the show across Seasons 1 and 2.
In Season 2's "A Star Is Born," Dean (Elisha "EJ" Williams) gets the role of Peter Pan in the school play, a role that is coveted by Future Karen (whose actual name appears to be Karen). Though they begin the episode as antagonists, Karen comes to help Dean become an actor, and the two end the episode as friends. And if you watched this happen before you caught up on the last season of "The Blacklist," you might have been wondering why Agnes Keen seemed to have some uncalled-for Karen vibes in her scenes on the show.