Kristen Johnston

The stage came first and she never entirely left it. Johnston trained at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School in New York and became a long-standing member of the company, with Drama Desk nominations and several Shakespeare in the Park productions behind her before television arrived.

3rd Rock from the Sun, from 1996, is what she is known for, and it won her the Primetime Emmy for supporting actress in a comedy twice. Sally Solomon is an alien assigned a human female body and instructed to pass, and Johnston plays her as somebody permanently affronted by the equipment. It is enormous physical comedy performed without a shred of apology, and it is much harder than it looks: every gesture has to read as both wrong and confident.

Film mostly wanted the same size at half the wit. Wilma Slaghoople in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Rhonda in Music and Lyrics, Deb in Bride Wars, an uncredited voice in Ice Age. Two of her best-remembered screen appearances are missing from the credits here: Ivana Humpalot in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and a one-scene party girl on Sex and the City that people still quote.

Television has served her better since. Tammy Diffendorf, a recovering addict, on Mom. Holly Franklin, a divorce lawyer, on The Exes. May-May Montgomery on The Righteous Gemstones and the Widow Evelyn Higgins on Our Flag Means Death, both of which use her deadpan rather than her volume, and both of which are the best late-career work on this page. Going Dutch and Leanne have kept her in series television into 2025.