Lara Flynn Boyle

LARA FLYNN BOYLE

Date of Birth: March 24, 1970

Whether she's portraying Helen Gamble, hard-boiled Boston attorney in The Practice, or Donna Hayward, the sultry girl-next-door of Twin Peaks, Lara Flynn Boyle is a femme fatale. (Maybe that's what bowled over Jack Nicholson). Or maybe it's the fact that apparently her exterior is deceptive. Turns out that underneath it all, Boyle's just a self-proclaimed neat freak homebody who lives in Los Angeles with her mom, four dogs and 11 television sets.

Boyle started her career early. An only child who grew up in small-town Iowa, she pursued her passion for acting as early as high school, when she was accepted at the Chicago Academy for the Arts. By the time she was a sophomore, she had been cast in the TV movie Amerika, and before she graduated, had landed a role in Poltergeist 3 and the part of Jennifer Levin in the high-profile TV movie The Preppie Murder. Her performances caught the eye of film director David Lynch, who cast her in his eerie TV series debut, Twin Peaks.

While the cult classic actually only lasted two season, Boyle had no time to sign up for unemployment. She worked in The Rookie, Wayne's World and Where the Day Takes You, a film that no one ever saw. Finally, Boyle was cast in a role she could really sink her teeth into, the beautiful, psychopathic secretary in 1993's The Temp.

Though big-screen leading lady status still evades her, she says that's a blessing in disguise. "I'm not in a Julia Roberts place or a Winona Ryder place," she told Entertainment Weekly in 1997. "I don't have any responsibility. I don't make $11 million a picture. I can take a lot more zany parts in smaller movies."

Filmography:

Men In Black 2 (2002)
Speaking of Sex (2001)
Chain of Fools (2000)
Susan's Plan (1998)
Happiness (1998)
Afterglow (1997)
Farmer & Chase (1997)
Red Meat (1997)
The Big Squeeze (1996)
Café Society (1995)
Baby's Day Out (1994)
The Road to Wellville (1994)
Threesome (1994)
The Temp (1993)
Equinox (1992)
Wayne's World (1992)
Red Rock West (1992)
Where the Day Takes You (1992)
Eye of the Storm (1991)
Mobsters (1991)
The Dark Backward (1991)
The Rookie (1990)
May Wine (1990)
Dead Poets Society (1989)
How I Got Into College (1989)
Poltergeist III (1988)