Sarah Baker

Nominations, not wins, are what Sarah Baker's most talked-about roles have collected. Louie brought her a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination. The Kominsky Method, where she plays Mindy Kominsky, brought three Screen Actors Guild nominations. Both are television, which is where her reputation lives, and both are supporting parts in shows built around a difficult man.

Her particular skill is unbothered competence with a dry undercut, the person in the scene who has already priced in everyone else's nonsense. It is the reason she gets recalled: her Young Sheldon character, Sheryl Hutchins, was brought back years later for the spinoff Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, which almost never happens to a supporting comic role.

The film credits are a long list of studio comedies where she gets one good beat and takes it: The Campaign, Tammy, Life of the Party, Thunder Force, Superintelligence, Rock the Kasbah, A Simple Favor, Mascots. The Death of Dick Long, where she plays Officer Dudley, is the outlier worth knowing about, a much stranger film than the rest.

Then there is the sitcom graveyard, and it is genuinely instructive. A to Z, Married, Go On, Ghosted, Great News, I Feel Bad, Sean Saves the World, The Crazy Ones, Free Radio, Kath & Kim: Baker is the actress networks hire to make a brand new sitcom feel like it has been running for three years, and most of those are shows you need reminding existed. Animation has been steadier, with recurring runs on Bob's Burgers as Ms. Selbo and The Great North as Chief Edna.