Why Camille From Worth Looks So Familiar
Sara Colangelo's "The Kindergarten Teacher" was one of the most underrated drama films of the 2010s: The story of the increasingly poor decisions of schoolteacher Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhall) was imbued with a degree of tension and psychological grit that made it an unforgettable experience for the criminally few who hit it up on Netflix. Now, fans of the film will be happy to learn that Colangelo is releasing her follow-up film — and, once again, she's tackling nigh-impossible dramatic material.
"Worth," out on Netflix September 3, tells the story of the grueling legal strife that surrounded the creation of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which was tasked with providing appropriate financial compensation, whatever that meant, for the families of 9/11 victims. As the characters scramble to figure out just how much a human life should be worth, attorney Camille Biros — based on the real-life administrator of the Fund — comes across as a particularly moving and revolting conundrum: a man who lost his male partner, and isn't allowed compensation because the law didn't recognize them as family.
Camille's efforts on behalf of the man epitomize the film's mission to put a human face to the unfathomable tragedy of September 11. The actress playing her is sure to have left a big impression on you if you've seen "Worth." Here are a few places where you may have seen her before.
Amy Ryan played port authority officer Beadie Russell on The Wire
A longtime actress of the stage with Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations under her belt (via IBDB), Amy Ryan slowly broke into the mainstream in the 2000s with a series of increasingly visible TV and film roles — the first of which was arguably her tough yet endearing turn as Beadie Russell on "The Wire."
If there was one thing in common among all the characters of the show's sprawling, ever-rotating ensemble cast, it was their complexity and fully-realized humanity. As a case in point, although Russell served a specific role in the story as the port authority officer who discovered the thirteen dead women's bodies at the beginning of Season 2 and then assisted in the investigation, the show gave equal time and consideration to her life as an overworked single mother.
In fact, even though Russell came to fulfill the role of Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West)'s primary love interest, it was a role she only stepped into because of how seriously the series took her character. As she struggled to raise her two kids, teach herself to be a proficient detective, and work the investigation's long hours all at the same time, Russell's flirtation with McNulty became her rare, much-needed respite. Estranged during the season, the two characters eventually got back together and had a fraught yet loving relationship throughout Seasons 3-5.
She was resident HR dork Holly Flax on The Office
"The Wire" wasn't the only instance of Amy Ryan playing the primary romantic interest of a beloved series' main character. She was also Hollis "Holly" Flax, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Michael Scott (Steve Carell), on "The Office."
Originally joining the cast in Season 4 as Dunder Mifflin's new Scranton HR Representative after Toby (Paul Lieberstein) announced he was moving to Costa Rica, Holly was initially hated reflexively by Michael due to being an HR person. Then, she quickly endeared herself to Michael and the rest of the office by proving to be both a very nice person and a certified dork. As the series progressed, she and Michael realized they were pretty much soulmates — Michael understood Holly's offbeat sense of humor, and Holly inspired Michael to become a better person.
Although their relationship ground to a halt when Holly got transferred back to the Nashua branch, she eventually returned to Scranton in Season 7, at which point Amy Ryan was even given an "And" credit during the opening titles. When Michael left the show, it was with Holly, as they both got engaged and moved to Colorado to start their life together.
Ryan earned widespread acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Gone Baby Gone
The movie that started Ben Affleck's transformation from dwindling blockbuster leading man to Oscar-laureate filmmaker was 2007's "Gone Baby Gone," adapted from Dennis Lehane's eponymous 1998 novel. The film, a homespun crime thriller, told the story of two Boston private detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) trying to find an abducted four-year-old girl.
Amy Ryan played the girl's mother, Helene McCready. Even though the film's protagonists first learned about the case by watching Helene plead on TV for her daughter to be found, the investigation gradually revealed that she wasn't the best mother in the world to begin with. An addict and mule for a local drug lord, Helene was a troubled woman who had never quite learned the ropes of parenting yet still terribly missed her childy, and Ryan's raw-nerve performance stunned critics and audiences with its uncanny rendition of a particular kind of marginalized South Bostonian.
It was Ryan's big breakthrough with movie audiences, and her widely acclaimed work earned her over 30 award nominations, including an Academy Award nod for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (via IMDb).
She memorably dressed down Birdman's egotistical protagonist
In the years following "The Office" and "Gone Baby Gone," Amy Ryan became a respected film and TV character actress, with appearances on HBO's "In Treatment" and in films like Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" and Tom McCarthy's "Win Win" — the latter of which won her significant awards attention. As such, it's no surprise that she was invited into the dream team of thespians that made up the cast of Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Birdman."
Although she had the smallest role out of the film's seven top-billed stars, Ryan still made a huge impression as Sylvia Thomson. The ex-wife of protagonist Riggan (Michael Keaton), Sylvia was the person around whom Riggan allowed himself to be most vulnerable, such that she was saddled with listening to his tortured soliloquies about his life, his fame, his regrets — in short, himself. In one key scene, after hearing Riggan confess that he once feared he'd die on the same airplane as George Clooney and be overshadowed in the news, Sylvia countered his plea for affection with a weary reminder of the reasons they'd broken up in the first place. Then, she calmly disassembled Riggan's persona with the film's most memorable line: "That's what you always do. You confuse love for admiration."
Ryan's grounded performance deftly counterbalanced the other characters' screaming theatrics, anchoring the film. When "Birdman" took off on its path to award season domination, she was one of the recipients of the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (via IMDb).
Ryan embodied Mari Gilbert's obstinate quest for justice in Netflix's Lost Girls
Even though Ryan has been a dependable screen presence for at least two decades now, it wasn't until recently in her career that she began to nab leading movie roles. And the best-known of those roles is probably that of Mari Gilbert in the Netflix true-crime mystery drama "Lost Girls."
Based on Robert Kolker's non-fiction book "Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery," the film dramatized Mari Gilbert's indefatigable pursuit of the truth surrounding the disappearance of her daughter Shannan. Much like what happened in real life, the film's characters, including the police and the media, don't afford the case due attention, because Shannon was a prostitute. Gilbert's quest for answers — which leads to the discovery of several other homicide victims whose cases have been glossed over — galvanizes Long Island, and helps lay bare the widespread neglect of sex workers' safety by U.S. law enforcement.
Once again, Ryan's steely, quietly intense work was universally acclaimed by critics, and ultimately served to pay tribute to the spirit of the real Gilbert, who was tragically killed by her own younger daughter in 2016 (via The New York Times).