Camryn Manheim

The breakthrough was a one-woman show. Wake Up, I'm Fat played off-Broadway in 1994, and Manheim later turned it into a book, published in 1999. Before that she had worked as a sign language interpreter in hospitals, a skill that turned up later in her acting, on The Practice and in an episode of Law & Order.

Ellenor Frutt on The Practice ran from 1997 to 2004 and won her a Primetime Emmy for supporting actress in a drama; a Golden Globe in the equivalent category sits alongside it in her record. Ellenor is the performance to understand her by. Manheim plays competence with a short fuse: she can take a line of pure legal procedure and deliver it as a personal grievance, so the exposition lands as character. Very few actors can make a caseload sound like a temper.

Television has kept her employed at that level ever since. Delia Banks on Ghost Whisperer, Control on Person of Interest, Lieutenant Cosgrove on Stumptown, Kate Dixon on Law & Order, and Gladys Presley in the 2005 miniseries Elvis, which drew a fresh round of awards attention.

Film has treated her worse, mostly small parts in large pictures: a nurse in Eraser, a doctor in Mercury Rising, a trooper in Scary Movie 3. The exceptions are worth hunting. Kristina in Happiness is a genuinely unnerving piece of work, Snow White in The 10th Kingdom is a proper leading turn, and Romy and Michele's High School Reunion gave her one of the funniest small turns on her list.