Celebrity crush: Jessica Collins

Jessica Collins in Rubicon. For non-TV shots, photographers are invited
to contact me at mentalnomadshow -at- gmail -dot- com so I can credit you!

There's a totally accidental theme between this week's new entry and its revised entry -- both feature actresses whose names will generate a lot of inaccurate search results because of other people (or Wednesday, a movie character) with the same name. Oops.

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Name: Jessica Collins (images -- some borderline NSFW, not all of her | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas, according to her Wikipedia profile. She later studied theatre at The Juilliard School and was credited in at least one appearance -- an early episode of The Ghost Whisperer -- as "Ava Collins."

(There's another Jessica Collins, a blonde actress a couple of years older, who co-stars on the soap The Young & the Restless and co-starred on Eliza Dushku's science fiction series Tru Calling.)

On Rubicon again, looking a lot like Chyler Leigh.
Shame she doesn't get to smile a lot in her roles.

Best Known For: ... Being on TV that may be smarter than the average viewer. Jessica's two full-time cast roles have come on shows that were canceled prematurely for poor ratings due in large part to an audience's impatience or inability to grasp nuance: The Nine (2006-07) on ABC, about survivors of a bank robbery gone wrong, and Rubicon (summer 2010), about American intelligence analysts in a world where no one was to be trusted.

In ABC's The Nine, I believe.

She also appeared in a film version of Tennessee Williams' The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond that starred fellow celebrity crush Bryce Dallas Howard and has guest-starred on numerous TV dramas.
Humble Beginnings: Not exactly humble, but certainly worth noting: Among those TV drama guest appearances were three episodes of CSI as Natalie "The Miniature Killer" Davis in a storyline that spanned seasons seven through nine of the venerable police procedural.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Besides the piercing eyes, this long, lean beauty (only 5'6" but seeming taller) is one hell of an actress. I don't even regularly watch the CSI shows but still got pulled into watching that storyline. It was her work on Rubicon, though, that really floored me -- amid a very solid ensemble of dramatic actors and actresses, gathered in one of the best shows AMC has ever done, she perhaps shone the brightest for reasons I cannot explain without spoiling a big, important part of the show's mystery.

Film and TV-movie credits: Lulu at the Ace Hotel (2010 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008) (Amazon | iTunes)
TV and Web series credits: Law & Order: Los Angeles: "Angel's Knoll" (Amazon | iTunes) * Blue Bloods, season 1: "Re-Do" (Amazon | iTunes) * Rubicon (2010) (Amazon | iTunes) * The Good Wife, season 1: "Home" (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI, season 9: "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda" (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI, season 8: "Dead Doll" (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI, season 7: "Living Doll" (Amazon | iTunes) * The Nine (2006) (Amazon | iTunes) * Law & Order: Criminal Intent, season 5: "Wrongful Life" (Amazon | iTunes) * Ghost Whisperer, season 1: "Ghost, Interrupted" (Amazon | iTunes)