Elizabeth Perkins

Elizabeth Perkins arrived in 1986 with About Last Night..., followed it with From the Hip, and in 1988 played Susan in Big, which is still the role most people place her by. It is worth remembering how difficult that part is. Susan has to fall for a man who is a child, and the film only works if she is smart enough that the audience does not lose respect for her. Perkins plays her as tired of adults, which solves it.

Her comic engine is impatience. She is very fast, she does not soften her line readings, and she is completely willing to be the least likeable person in a scene. The mid-1990s put her in family pictures where that got sanded down, Wilma Flintstone in The Flintstones and Dorey Walker in Miracle on 34th Street, both fine and both a waste. Weeds fixed it. Celia Hodes is a suburban monster and Perkins played her without asking anyone to sympathise, which brought three Primetime Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.

Since then she has worked steadily in the character slot that Celia opened up: Jackie O'Neill in Sharp Objects, Isabel in The Afterparty, Constance in Minx, Mrs. Winchester in The Housemaid, Margaret McLanden in Another Simple Favor. She has also done a lot of animation, Coral in Finding Nemo, Bonnie O'Hare in Hop, an alternate Aunt May in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Earlier drama is easy to overlook and shouldn't be, particularly Avalon and The Doctor, both from the start of the 1990s.