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Why Meredith From Five Feet Apart Looks So Familiar

"Five Feet Apart" is a touching movie that puts its own spin on the "doomed romance" genre. It follows in the footsteps of "A Walk to Remember" and "Every Day," where you know going into it that even if one or both people in the couple don't make it out all right. But at the end of the day, their lives were forever changed by that brief period where they were head over heels for another person.

The film's now available to watch on Netflix, and it already broke its way into the platform's Top 10 Movies. It's the perfect film to put on when you're in the mood for a good cry, and in the film's climactic moment where it looks like Stella's (Haley Lu Richardson) life might finally turn around, we're introduced to Meredith (Claire Forlani). She's the mother of Will (Cole Sprouse), who has a bone to pick with Stella's family when the two run away from the hospital right before an organ transplant is imminent.

Forlani delivers a brief yet compelling portrayal of a mother who wants the best for her child, and the actress has plenty of experience with such emotional performances.

Claire Forlani plays Sean Connery's daughter in The Rock

Claire Forlani has had quite the storied career with an array of supporting roles in immensely popular films. After she broke out into the mainstream with 1995's "Mallrats," Forlani found herself in a vastly different movie with "The Rock." Widely considered to be the best Michael Bay film, "The Rock" follows a group of SEALs to infiltrate the island of Alcatraz where a group of rogue Marines has taken tourists hostage with the threat of launching a rocket onto nearby San Francisco. 

To take down the bad guys, the FBI enlists the help of the only man ever to escape Alcatraz when it was still operational as a prison: John Mason (Sean Connery). He has a knack for evading authority, but it's for a good reason. When he gets away from FBI custody for a while, he seeks out his estranged daughter Jade (Forlani). He ultimately wants to do right by her, and in one of the most emotional scenes in any Michael Bay film, he pleads with her to give him another chance because she's the only real evidence of his existence. Jade functions as the film's emotional crux, giving Mason something to fight for and make it back from the island in one piece.

It may have been a small part, but it resonated with the actress. After Connery's death, she posted on Instagram a still of the two together along with the message, "He was funny, friendly, fierce, shared his experience of the business, Loved to laugh and to swing dance. He swung my best friend Natalie around the room all night, she and I keep that for the memory banks." 

She played Ben Stiller's love interest in Mystery Men

Long before Deadpool received a cinematic adaptation, another superhero comedy poked fun at the genre. No, we're not talking about "Kick-Ass." You have to go back even further to the late 1990s to witness all of the glory that is "Mystery Men."

The movie bombed hard at the box office when it first came out, but it's grown into its cult status, with many superhero fans looking back fondly at the film as being ahead of its time. Claire Forlani doesn't play a superhero in the titular organization, but she is the love interest for Roy (Ben Stiller), whose amazing power is his unbridled rage. In true superhero fashion, he only gets a chance to showcase what he's truly capable of at the end of the film when he goes toe-to-toe with Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush). 

If the film had come out 10 years later when superhero movies were genuinely inseparable from the zeitgeist, perhaps it would've been embraced more wholeheartedly. As it stands, the film is still worth a revisit. In addition to seeing Forlani exhibit excellent chemistry with Stiller, there's a ton of '90s comedic talent, including Janeane Garofalo, Hank Azaria, Kel Mitchell, and Greg Kinnear.

She recently starred in the Disney+ original film Black Beauty

Claire Forlani has maintained steady work over the years, appearing in a vast array of movies and TV shows from "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" to "NCIS: Los Angeles." If you have a Disney+ account, you may have most recently seen the actress in the platform's original movie "Black Beauty." Based on the classic children's book adapted to film in the past, "Black Beauty" follows a young girl who forms an emotional bond with a horse as the two undergo various adventures and challenges together.

Forlani plays Mrs. Winthorp, the matriarch of an upper-class family that ultimately purchases Black Beauty from the Green family. When the Winthorps face financial hardship, they sell the horses, and it falls on Jo Green's (Mackenzie Foy) shoulders to track down her beloved horse and bring her home. It's a story that's stood the test of time, and the latest adaptation proves what an immeasurable talent Claire Forlani is.