Hey I Know You! And You! And You!

So a few weeks ago I mentioned we were watching Six Feet Under, some 20 years after it originally aired. One side effect of watching a show this old is that I’ve been recognizing a number of guest stars who later became famous*. Most of these guest stars are, of course, completely unknown to my wife, so when I gleefully announce who they are, her usual response is a solid meh. Usually. We’re only partway through Season 3 at this point, so I’m sure we have more future-famous guest stars to look forward to. In fact, I’m sure I’ve forgotten some who we saw already. But let’s take a look at a few of the ones I do remember, shall we?

Future Famous Face #1: Adam Scott

Our first future famous guest star is one I recognized immediately: Adam Scott, who we’ve seen in a few episodes of The Good Place as well as the film Krampus and elsewhere.

Me: “I’m pretty sure that’s Adam Scott.”
Wife (mystified): “Who?”
Me: “He played like a demon or something in The Good Place? I think he brought them Hawaiian pizzas?”
Wife: “Did we watch that?”

We did watch The Good Place for a while, but my wife eventually lost interest in it. I should go finish the series one of these days … And I guess I should say I’ve seen him in Krampus, since my wife fell asleep almost immediately when I started watching it; you can probably tell why just from the trailer.

All in all, it’s probably not surprising that my wife didn’t really know who Adam Scott is. This is going to become a trend, so get used to it.

Future Famous Face #2: Molly Parker

Next up, we have Molly Parker, who has played a rabbi named Ari in a couple of episodes, in which she has given Nate advice about life, death, relationships, and why she can’t go out with him even though he didn’t ask.

It actually took me a little while to figure out who Molly Parker is; I knew I knew her from somewhere, but finally had to Google her to nail down from where: She played Maureen Robinson in the Netflix reboot of Lost in Space, which I watched a couple of seasons of before getting kinda bored with it.

Wife: “I like her.”
Me: “Me too. She was in Lost in Space on Netflix.”
Wife: “I mean I like her character on this show.”
Me: “Oh. Well, yes, I like her character too.”

Future Famous Face #3: Lili Taylor

Now, okay, Lili Taylor was already pretty famous before she turned up in Six Feet Under as Lisa, if for no other reason than her major role in the John Cusack film Say Anything, in which she delivered the single most important line in the single most important scene of the entire movie (yes, even more important than the boombox scene):

But still, she’s nobody my wife ever heard of, despite being a main character in the Amazon Prime show Outer Range, which we watched a couple of years ago and are still waiting for a second season of. Come on, Amazon, get on with it already!

At first it appeared that Lili Taylor was just going to be in one episode of Six Feet Under, but then she came back for an extended run of episodes, because of spoilery reasons I’ll refrain from mentioning even though they’re from like two decades ago.

Me: “I should’ve known Lisa would be back. If she was only going to be in one episode, they wouldn’t have had her being played by Lili Taylor.”
Wife: “Who’s Lili Taylor?”

Future Famous Face #4: Zachary Quinto

Yes, that’s right, the future Spock (and the future Sylar, if you watched Heroes**), showed up in at least one episode, in which he was credited as “Hip Student”.

Me: “Hey, I think that’s Zachary Quinto. He plays Spock now.”
Wife: (quite clearly could not care less)

Future Famous Face #5: Rainn Wilson

Next up, we have Rainn Wilson, of “The Office” fame, who appeared in Six Feet Under as Arthur Martin, an unpaid assistant helping out around the funeral home in exchange for room and board and generally being kinda creepy.

Naturally, at least one of the Fisher women falls for him. Meanwhile, my wife and I are both waiting for Arthur to snap somehow. He’s definitely creepy, even when he’s being pleasant and mild-mannered, for instance, in this one episode, where Nate was looking for someone to watch his daughter Maya:

Arthur: “Do you still need someone to watch Maya today?”
Nate: “Umm…”
Arthur: “Because I love infants.”
Wife (imitating Arthur): “They taste delicious!”
Me: “I was thinking the same thing!!!”

Future Famous Face #6: Ben Foster

This is another one I didn’t recognize for a looong time, partly because he’s always in the opening credits, which we usually skip, as “guest starring”, so I never saw his name. Then one time we didn’t skip them and I was like, “Wait, what? Ben Foster is in this episode?!” So then I kept an eye out for him, and there he was, playing Claire’s classmate Russell:

Ben Foster has been in a ton of movies; I mostly remember him as Angel in one of the lesser X-Men movies***, but he’s also been in any number of other things we’ve seen, including Hell or High Water, where he essentially played Chris Pine’s less attractive younger brother****.

Anyway, I scrounged up an interview Ben Foster did for said X-Men movie and played it for my wife to see if she would remember him from any of the other things she’s seen him in:

Wife: “That’s the guy who plays Claire’s friend from class?”
Me: “Yep, that’s Ben Foster.”
Wife (studying TV screen intently): “He’s really grown into himself since Six Feet Under.”

We then proceeded to watch considerably more of the interview with Ben Foster than I thought we would. I have no idea why … 🤷‍♂️

* This is on top of the guest stars who were already famous, such as Richard Jenkins and Kathy Bates, the former of whom my wife never heard of and the latter of whom my wife actually remembers from Fried Green Tomatoes, and not to mention Jeremy Sisto, Mare Winningham, Alice Krige, Joanna Cassidy, Catherine O’Hara, James Cromwell … Wow there sure was a big chunk of Hollywood in this show!
** Which, for some reason, I didn’t.
*** A franchise which, sadly, has had no shortage of lesser entries.
**** Which I guess is what happens when you have the misfortune to be cast opposite Chris Pine and you’re not Denzel Washington.