Jessica Stroup
Jessica Stroup is an actor, born 1986.
Jessica Stroup's Wikipedia entry describes her as a former actress, and the credits support it: the work runs hard from 2005 to about 2018 and then stops.
Horror hired her first. Vampire Bats in 2005, The Hills Have Eyes 2 in 2007, Prom Night in 2008, enough of them fast enough that the scream queen label attached, and she was good in the way those films need: credible fear, no camp, a face the camera can hold in the dark.
Network television then gave her the long job. She played Erin Silver on 90210 from 2008 to 2013, five years as the character written to be the difficult one, and followed it with Max Hardy on The Following from 2014 to 2015, a series far nastier than its network slot suggested.
Iron Fist, from 2017 to 2018, is the most interesting thing she did. Joy Meachum is written as a corporate heir, and Stroup plays her as the only person on the show with a coherent set of loyalties, which makes her considerably more watchable than the lead. Around all that sit small film parts: Ted, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, The Informers, This Christmas. Then nothing, which is hers to explain and nobody else's.
Movies (9)
TV (7)
Where to start with Jessica Stroup
Leading with Marvel's Iron Fist is an odd recommendation, since the show is the weakest of its Netflix cycle, but she is the best reason to watch it. Joy Meachum gets an actual arc while the title character mostly stands around.
For the long-form version, 90210 is five seasons of soap and she is the most watchable person in it, though nobody should start a show that size for one performer. The Following is better acted than expected and gives her the closest thing to a co-lead.
The horror is the fun part of this filmography. Prom Night is the most polished, The Hills Have Eyes 2 the most brutal, and Vampire Bats the cheap one you watch for completeness. Ted and The Informers are small parts in films you would be watching anyway.