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Why Doris From Bliss Looks So Familiar

You're supposed to have questions watching the new Amazon Studios science fiction thriller Bliss.

Greg (Owen Wilson) is going through a tough time at work and in his personal life when he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), who tells him they're living in a simulation that they have the power to control. So far, so good, until Isabel finds a way to leave their dreary, depressing world behind and enter into a reality in which they can experience, well, you know.

The whole premise of Bliss is to make audiences, and Greg, question which part of these worlds is real and which is just a figment of his imagination. It's a lot to take in, but here's one answer that you can absolutely depend on, one less nagging doubt to distract your brain from the movie's central mysteries. Yes, you probably do recognize Madeline Zima, the actress who plays the supporting role of Doris in the film, and chances are it's from her work in one of the movies or TV shows below.

Madeline Zima got her start as a charge for a pair of very different on-screen nannies

Zima started acting regularly as a child, appearing as an 8-year-old in a pair of projects with a curious and obvious commonality. On the big screen, one of her first-ever film roles was playing the troublesome rich kid Kate Mason in the wrestler Hulk Hogan's entry into the microgenre of tough-action-guys-assigned-to-care-for-misbehaving-children, 1993's Mr. Nanny. Along with her brother Alex (Robert Gorman), the pair torture Hogan's Sean with Home Alone-style pranks, but eventually their new minder is able to win them over and, with their help, foil a kidnapping plot against their father, a distracted tech CEO (Austin Pendleton).

That same year also saw Zima take on her role as Grace Sheffield on TV's The Nanny. Grace is the precocious baby of the family, still working through her feelings from the death of her mother. But it's she who forms the strongest bond with her and her siblings' new nanny Fran Fine (Fran Drescher). Her admiration and mimicry of Fran would become big sources of laughs over the series' six seasons, as well as her attempts to help set Fran up with her father, Max Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy).

Madeline Zima was an evil stepsister in a high school Cinderella Story

You don't need to have seen 2004's A Cinderella Story to know what Zima gets up to once you learn she's playing the heroine's stepmother's actual daughter. Whether the story is set in some nebulous time period past with actual princes and coaches and singing mice or in a San Fernando Valley high school shortly after the dawn of the new millennium, evil stepsisters are going to evil stepsister.

So yes, Zima's Brianna, her sister Gabriella (Andrea Avery), and their mother Fiona (Jennifer Coolidge) do treat their relative-by-marriage Sam Montgomery (Hilary Duff) like garbage. Yes, Sam's only solace is her online correspondence with "Nomad," who shares her dream of attending Princeton (get it?) and is actually the school's popular quarterback Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray). And yes, when Brianna and Gabriella discover that Sam was the mysterious masked "Cinderella" who appeared at the school's Halloween party and danced with Austin, they hijack the messages the two shared and attempt to pretend it was really them. When that fails, they find a way to read them out in front of the entire school, much to the shame and embarrassment of all parties involved.

And in the end, their plan works, and Brianna ends up with the Prince Charming stand-in, condemning Sam to a life of... No, just kidding, she and her sister and their mother all get their comeuppance, and Sam and Austin drive off to Princeton together, truly the stuff of fairy tale dreams.

Madeline Zima stole an entire novel on Californication

Zima stayed in Southern California for her next big role, playing Mia Lewis on the Showtime series Californication. Mia is picked up in a bookstore by the author and series protagonist Hank Moody (David Duchovny) in the series premiere. It's only after their one-night stand that Hank learns she is 16 and the daughter of his ex-girlfriend's new fiancé. She uses the threat of going to the police to blackmail him into providing her with writing for her high school classes, and eventually steals a copy of an entire novel from him, which she publishes under her own name.

The novel becomes a hit, but after its release, the truth of its authorship and the criminal nature of Hank and Mia's relationship eventually comes out. Hank is indicted on statutory rape charges. Mia testifies in Hank's defense that he didn't know how old she was, which perhaps softens the sentence he ends up getting after he's found guilty.

Madeline Zima played a college roommate on Heroes

In 2009, Zima jumped back into a regular network television gig with a recurring role on the fourth season of NBC's ensemble superhero series Heroes as Claire's (Hayden Pannettiere) friend and then roommate at Arlington College. 

Unfortunately for Gretchen, she got the other spot in Claire's dorm room only after Claire's first roommate was killed, and her death made to look like a suicide. Absent any evidence left by the murderer, Claire begins to suspect Gretchen, who seems a little too interested in Claire. When confronted, Gretchen admits not to murderous impulses but to having a crush on Claire. Her innocence is confirmed when the invisible evolved human and fellow student Becky Taylor (Tessa Thompson) attacks them both in their room. The attack scares Gretchen and damages her relationship with Claire, but the pair are eventually able to patch things up, with Claire even exploring the first tentative steps in a relationship with Gretchen.