Rachael Taylor

Hollywood found her quickly and then took a while to work out what to do with her. Taylor, born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1984, led the Australian series headLand as Sasha Forbes from 2005, and within two years was in Transformers as Maggie Madsen, which is the kind of jump that usually breaks a career one way or the other.

What followed was a decade of near misses. Man-Thing, See No Evil, Shutter, The Darkest Hour, The Loft: genre films that wanted a capable, composed woman in them and rarely gave her a reason to be there. She led two American network series in quick succession, Charlie's Angels and 666 Park Avenue, neither of which turned into the long run it was built to be.

Trish Walker changed that. Across Marvel's Jessica Jones and The Defenders she got the thing the film work never offered, which is continuity: a character with a history, a complicated friendship and an arc that runs for years rather than ninety minutes. It is easily her best sustained work, and it is worth noticing that she is better at playing damage than at playing poise, which is the opposite of what most of her earlier casting assumed.

The Australian films are the underrated seam. Red Dog is a genuinely beloved picture at home, Ladies in Black is a lovely, unhurried period comedy, and Gold and ARQ show her doing more with less. The career has ended up split between two countries, and the smaller country has generally treated her better.