Lili Taylor
Birthday:
Birthplace:
Glencoe, Illinois, USA
One of the most versatile actresses working in film today, Lili Taylor is known for taking on complex, thorny roles that many of her more glamorous colleagues avoid. In the 1990s, she became a staple of the independent film circuit, turning in one engaging performance after another in films like The Addiction (1995), Girls Town (1996), and Pecker (1998). A native of Glencoe, IL, where she was born on February 20, 1967, Taylor was raised in a comfortable middle-class household as the second youngest of six children. She started acting in grade school and briefly attended DePaul University's Goodman Theater School before launching her professional career in local and regional theater. She acted for a time with Evanston's Piven Theater, performing in the company of such future notables as John Cusack, Aidan Quinn, and Jeremy Piven. In 1987, she spent a season on-stage in Czechoslovakia, returning stateside the following year to make her New York City stage debut in a production of What Did He See? That same year, Taylor ventured into feature films with a bit part in the John Hughes comedy She's Having a Baby. Though the role brought Taylor little recognition, she scored big with her sophomore effort, a starring role in Mystic Pizza (1988) as one of three amorous pizzeria girls (the other two were Julia Roberts and Annabeth Gish) working in a small Connecticut coastal town. More recognition followed for Say Anything... (1989), in which Taylor played John Cusack's hilariously obsessive best friend; she continued to shine in films like Bright Angel (1991), in which she was cast as the drifter sister of a jailbird, and in Dogfight (1991), in which she was the obligatory "ugly duckling" who both transformed and was transformed by her reluctant date, River Phoenix. From the late '80s through the 1990s, Taylor proved to be a willing and able ensemble player in the works of several respected directors: Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), and Alan Rudolph's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). She also did notable work in independent films, starring in Abel Ferrara's The Addiction (1995); Girls Town (1996), a drama about four high school girls trying to cope with everyday hardship, for which she also co-wrote the screenplay; and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), which cast her in one of her most memorable roles as the mad, murderous Valerie Solanas. In 1998, Taylor played the uncharacteristically glamorous role of an art dealer who tries to seduce the young hero of John Waters' Pecker, and also tried her hand at screwball comedy with Stanley Tucci's The Imposters. Having demonstrated her range in a number of genres, Taylor then took on big-budget horror in 1999 with her starring role in Jan de Bont's The Haunting. However, staying true to her indie loyalties, she could also be seen playing an ordinary woman who begins to lead an extraordinary life in Toni Kalem's adaptation of Anne Tyler's A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of that year.As the new century began Taylor could be seen alongside her old co-star John Cusack in High Fidelity, and in 2001 she tackled the historical role of Miep Gies in a retelling of Anne Frank. She had a memorable role on the HBO series Six Feet Under. She continued to work steadily in diverse projects such as The Secret, Starting Out in the Evening, Brooklyn's Finest, Public Enemies, and Being Flynn.
Photos
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
75% | The Evening Hour |
|
— | 2021 |
100% | Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago |
|
— | 2020 |
48% | Eli |
|
— | 2019 |
30% | Leatherface |
|
— | 2017 |
70% | To the Bone |
|
— | 2017 |
48% | Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials |
|
— | 2015 |
No Score Yet | A Woman Like Me |
|
— | 2015 |
52% | Blood Ties |
|
$29.3k | 2014 |
64% | The Cold Lands |
|
— | 2014 |
86% | The Conjuring |
|
$137.4M | 2013 |
93% | Future Weather |
|
— | 2013 |
14% | About Cherry |
|
$3.3k | 2012 |
No Score Yet | The Courier |
|
— | 2012 |
51% | Being Flynn |
|
$0.6M | 2012 |
No Score Yet | The Pier |
|
— | 2011 |
44% | Brooklyn's Finest |
|
$26.8M | 2010 |
68% | Public Enemies |
|
$97M | 2009 |
No Score Yet | Tired of Being Funny |
|
— | 2009 |
54% | The Promotion |
|
$0.4M | 2008 |
87% | Starting Out in the Evening |
|
$0.6M | 2007 |
No Score Yet | The Secret (Si j'étais toi) |
|
— | 2007 |
74% | Factotum |
|
$0.8M | 2006 |
57% | The Notorious Bettie Page |
|
$1.4M | 2006 |
No Score Yet | The Secret |
|
— | 2006 |
No Score Yet | Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove: Readings From Voices of a People's History of the United States |
|
— | 2005 |
No Score Yet | In the Company of Women |
|
— | 2004 |
58% | Casa de los Babys |
|
$0.4M | 2003 |
92% | The Weather Underground |
|
— | 2002 |
78% | Live from Baghdad |
|
— | 2002 |
29% | Gaudi Afternoon |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | Anne Frank |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | Julie Johnson |
|
— | 2001 |
91% | High Fidelity |
|
— | 2000 |
17% | The Haunting |
|
— | 1999 |
63% | The Impostors |
|
— | 1999 |
26% | A Slipping-Down Life |
|
— | 1999 |
52% | Pecker |
|
— | 1998 |
No Score Yet | O.K. Garage |
|
— | 1998 |
20% | Kicked in the Head |
|
— | 1997 |
No Score Yet | SUBWAYStories: Tales from the Underground |
|
— | 1997 |
No Score Yet | Subway Stories |
|
— | 1997 |
50% | Illtown |
|
— | 1997 |
14% | Four Rooms |
|
— | 1996 |
75% | Ransom |
|
— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Things I Never Told You |
|
— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Killer: A Journal of Murder |
|
— | 1996 |
76% | I Shot Andy Warhol |
|
— | 1996 |
95% | Cold Fever |
|
— | 1996 |
76% | The Addiction |
|
— | 1995 |
88% | Girls Town |
|
— | 1995 |
24% | Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter) |
|
— | 1994 |
75% | Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (Mrs. Parker and the Round Table) |
|
— | 1994 |
78% | Rudy |
|
— | 1993 |
95% | Short Cuts |
|
— | 1993 |
56% | Watch It |
|
— | 1993 |
87% | Arizona Dream |
|
— | 1993 |
50% | Household Saints |
|
— | 1993 |
79% | Dogfight |
|
— | 1991 |
80% | Bright Angel |
|
— | 1991 |
85% | Born on the Fourth of July |
|
— | 1989 |
98% | Say Anything... |
|
— | 1989 |
76% | Mystic Pizza |
|
— | 1988 |
43% | She's Having a Baby |
|
— | 1988 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
75% |
Perry Mason
2020
|
|
|
96% |
American Crime
2015-2017
|
|
|
78% |
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
|
|
|
38% |
Hemlock Grove
2013-2015
|
|
|
77% |
Gotham
2014-2019
|
|
|
69% |
Almost Human
2013-2014
|
|
|
93% |
The Good Wife
2009-2016
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
State of Mind
2007
|
|
|
81% |
Six Feet Under
2001-2005
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Independent Lens
1999
|
|
|
58% |
Deadline
2000-2001
|
|
|
90% |
Farscape
1999-2003
|
|
|
74% |
The X-Files
1993-2018
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Mad About You
1992-1999
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
American Playhouse
1982-1996
|
|
|
Quotes from Lili Taylor's Characters
Carolyn Perron: | My family means the world for me. |
Carolyn Perron: | There's something horrible happening in my house. |
Carolyn Perron: | I'm comin' with you. |
Lorraine Warren: | I'm comin' with you. |
Ed Warren: | No way, I can't lose you. |
Carolyn Perron: | We have to get out of here. |
Ed Warren: | That's not gonna help. |
Carolyn Perron: | There's somethin' horrible happenin' in my house. |
Carolyn Perron: | I'm coming with you. |
Ed Warren: | No way, I can't lose you. |
Carolyn Perron: | We have to get out of here. |
Ed Warren: | That's not going to help. |
Carolyn Perron: | There's something horrible happening in my house. |
Kathleen Conklin: | Our addiction is evil. The propensity for this evil lies in our weakness before it. |
Kathleen Conklin: | You know, this obtuseness, it's disheartening, especially in a doctoral candidate. |
Kathleen Conklin: | Dependency is a marvelous thing. It does more for the soul than any formulation of doctoral material. |
Kathleen Conklin: | There is no history.Everything we are is eternally with us. Our question, therefore, is what can save us from our crazy insistence on spreading the blight in ever widening circles? |
Kathleen Conklin: | There is no history. Everything we are is eternally with us. Our question, therefore, is what can save us from our crazy insistence on spreading the blight in ever widening circles? |
D.C.: | Lloyd, why do you have to be like this? |
Lloyd Dobler: | 'Cause I'm a guy. I have pride. |
Corey Flood: | You're not a guy. |
Lloyd Dobler: | I Am. |
Corey Flood: | No. The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don't be a guy. |
Nell: | Welcome home Eleanor... |
Lloyd Dobler: | I'm gonna take out Diane Court again. |
Corey Flood: | Well that's unlikely. |