Elisabeth Shue

For most of a decade Hollywood used Shue as the reasonable one. Ali Mills in The Karate Kid, Chris Parker in Adventures in Babysitting, Jordan in Cocktail, Jennifer across two Back to the Future sequels: bright, capable young women whose job was to be worth the hero's trouble. She was very good at it, which is a trap, because the parts had no interior.

Leaving Las Vegas settled that argument. As Sera she plays a Las Vegas sex worker who takes in a man determined to drink himself out of the world, and her choice is to withhold pity. There is no actressy damage in it and no pleading for sympathy, just a woman deciding what she is willing to accept in exchange for company. It brought Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.

What followed was less than the performance deserved. The industry offered thrillers and mothers: The Saint, Palmetto, Hollow Man, Hide and Seek, House at the End of the Street, then a long run on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She has had better luck lately as a supporting player with a specific edge, particularly Madelyn Stillwell in the first season of The Boys, a corporate handler whose warmth is entirely a management technique, and Priscilla Riggs in Battle of the Sexes. The small strange ones are worth finding too: Mysterious Skin, Deconstructing Harry, and Piranha 3D, which she plays completely straight.