Why Ms. Preecher From American Horror Story: Delicate Looks So Familiar
Episode 1 of "American Horror Story: Delicate," which is Season 12 of the anthology series, introduces viewers to Anna Victoria Alcott (Emma Roberts), a successful actor who's in the process of attempting to become pregnant through in vitro fertilization. From the start, however, her interest in motherhood leads her into some creepy situations, including a couple of encounters with a woman named Ms. Preecher.
First, Ms. Preecher accosts Anna in the waiting room of a fertility clinic, insisting that Anna is someone she knows. Then she appears in the studio audience of a talk show on which Anna is a guest. Finally, Anna dreams of Ms. Preecher just before the episode closes.
Julie White is the name of the actor who plays Ms. Preecher in "AHS: Delicate." Her Hollywood career kicked off in the 90s and she's been working regularly ever since. If she looks familiar in "AHS," it's most likely from one of the following highlights of her sizable filmography.
Julie White was part of the ensemble cast of Grace Under Fire
"Grace Under Fire" is the second ever sitcom that prolific showrunner Chuck Lorre created. It stars stand-up comic Brett Butler as Grace Burdette-Kelly, who at the show's start leaves her husband after eight years of marriage so she can raise their kids away from his alcoholism. As a newly single mother of three children, the people in her community with whom she becomes close after starting her new life effectively become part of a found family at the show's core.
Julie White plays Nadine Swoboda, Grace's neighbor and husband of Wade (Casey Sander). White remained a part of the show's cast for four seasons before leaving prior to the start of Season 5. Her exit is justified when, just after she gives birth, she decides to move away from the small Missouri town in which the show takes place to raise her new child in Colorado. In total, White appears as Nadine in 97 episodes of "Grace Under Fire" that first aired between 1993 and 1997.
White was a frequent television actor in the 2000s
Prior to her first Hollywood role, Julie White was a prolific theater performer, first on the East Coast and later in and around Los Angeles. After she established herself as a formidable TV actor in "Grade Under Fire," she began appearing regularly for single episodes or short stints on popular TV shows throughout the 2000s.
Immediately after she left "Grace Under Fire," for example, she joined a Season 3 episode of HBO's "Arli$$." Then in 2000, she was in an episode of "NCIS" progenitor "JAG." The following year she was in one episode of "Ally McBeal" as well as a four-episode arc of "Six Feet Under." Other shows she worked on throughout the rest of the decade include "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Whoopi," "Rescue Me," "Desperate Housewives," and the Geico commercial spin-off "Cavemen."
While she was never quite a regular on any of these series, she very well may look familiar to fans who might still remember one or more of these brief appearances.
She's Sam's mom in the Transformers movies
Julie White's first big Hollywood film role was in the 2007 "Transformers" movie, in which she plays Judy Witwicky, mother to protagonist Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). For the balance of the film her character is defined entirely by an ongoing comedic game as she narrowly misses the fantastical events around her son and reacts to their fallout as if they're routine moments in a teenage boy's life.
White returns in both "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," by which point her character is fully aware of the existence of Transformers. Nevertheless, Judy is still her same, bumbling self, oftentimes more concerned with the nuisance Bumblebee poses to her backyard, for example, than the threat the Decepticons pose to Earth. Once the series shifts its focus away from Sam as of fourth entry "Transformers: Age of Extinction," Judy too is no longer a part of the franchise.
She's Lorraine Zimmer in Designated Survivor
The momentum Julie White maintained through the 2000s as a regular TV actor carried through, to some extent, into the 2010s as well. During that decade she showed up in series like "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "The Good Wife," "Man Seeking Woman," and "Chicago Med." One of her longest-running roles during this time was in "Nurse Jackie," in which she plays a character named Antoinette for all of Season 6.
Then, in 2019, she joined the regular cast of "Designated Survivor" Season 3 as Lorraine Zimmer. When she first shows up in Season 3, Episode 1, she's a former campaign manager for Cornelius Moss (Geoff Pierson), who was president shortly before protagonist and unexpected new president Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland). When it comes time for Kirkman to run for reelection, Moss runs as his opponent, but Zimmer decides to advise Kirkman instead. By the season's end Zimmer is arrested by the FBI after she's caught employing underhanded methods to ensure Kirkman's victory.
She's Maggie Shaw in NCIS Hawai'i
Over the course of her lengthy career, Julie White has occasionally shown up in major feature films like "Michael Clayton" and "Lincoln." However, TV seems to be where she's most at home. This decade alone, in addition to her "American Horror Story" role, she's already appeared on "Mrs. America," "WeCrashed," as well as "And Just Like That...," and is a significant part of CBS sitcom "How We Roll."
Perhaps her most watched role during this period of her career is her stint as Maggie Shaw on six episodes of "NCIS Hawai'i." Maggie first appears in Season 1, Episode 6 as a friend of protagonist Jane Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) in the employ of the CIA. She then becomes an important part of Episodes 12 and 13, in which she's key to the mysterious death of a Naval engineer. At that point it turns out Maggie is a double agent and actually working for the Chinese government. She then returns for the final two episodes of Season 2, when Jane's past work for the CIA becomes central to a tense murder investigation. Based on how this storyline ends, it's likely White will be back as Maggie in "NCIS Hawai'i" Season 3.