Karen Sillas

Sillas was a well-kept secret of the independent film community until Tom Noonan's "What Happened Was . ." (1993) blew her anonymity. The head of CBS casting saw the intense two-character film about a first date at the 1994 Sundance Festival (where it won the Grand Jury Prize) and immediately wanted her as the star of the network's new cop series "Under Suspicion" (1994-95). Sillas was right at home, comparing the atmosphere of the Oregon-based "Suspicion" to that of an independent film, and though it lasted only a season, she drew nothing but raves for her tight-lipped, tight-skirted detective Rose Phillips. Since then she has starred in two miniseries, "Peter Benchley's 'The Beast'" (NBC, 1996) and "Night Sins" (CBS, 1997), acted opposite Gary Cole in the ABC movie "Lies He Told" (also 1997). On the big screen, Sillas essayed a lesbian psychiatrist in "Female Perversions" (1996) and attempted a change of pace breezy turn as Steven Weber's no-nonsense girlfriend in Larry David's uneven black comedy "Sour Grapes" (1998).