Possessing a trademark smoky rasp and a beauty that Ms. magazine called "consequential, not cosmetic", Lili Taylor forged her distinctive career playing quirky, complex characters in mostly independent films. The Chicago native who would go on to thrive as outsiders and misunderstood misfits began in theater, acting in regional productions with Chicago's Northlight Theater and the Actors Theater of Louisville, among others. She also spent an "exchange" season (1987) in Czechoslovakia before moving to NYC in 1988 to perform in Richard Foreman's experimental "What Did He See?".
Taylor's first film part, a bit in the John Hughes comedy "She's Having a Baby" (1988), passed unnoticed, but she gained well-deserved praise and wide recognition for her feisty bride-to-be with cold feet in "Mystic Pizza" (1988) and the musically-inclined, emotionally-scarred friend of John Cusack in "Say Anything" (1989). Taylor had a small but moving role as a Vietnam war widow in Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989) and a starring role as an off-kilter drifter trying to spring her brother from jail in "Bright Angel" (1991). She also gained twenty pounds and took the risky career move of playing a dumpy, plain Jane victim of a mean-spirited Marine bet in Nancy Savoca's "Dogfight" (1991), co-starring River Phoenix.
These were hardly the actions of a Julia Roberts (a "Mystic Pizza" co-star) or a Demi Moore, but Taylor was no ordinary starlet. Not unattractive by anyone's standards, except perhaps those of Hollywood, the fiercely dedicated and intellectual Taylor has lost numerous roles because, as she recounted in interviews, Hollywood's "beauty standard is so strict . . . all the feedback I got was that I was very good but I wasn't, basically, attractive enough." Concentrating instead on interesting "character" roles, Taylor played opposite Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway in the surrealistic French-financed comedy "Arizona Dream" (1992 but not released in the USA until 1995) and then co-starred with Tracey Ullman as a religious fanatic in Savoca's ensemble piece "Household Saints" (1993).
Taylor had a few good moments as the naive wife of randy makeup artist Robert Downey Jr in Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" before appearing in the atypical sports drama "Rudy" (both 1993). Ironically, Taylor almost lost the small role of Edna Ferber in Alan Rudolph's enjoyable but rambling "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994) because she was too pretty. Unfortunately, she had no trouble getting cast as the colorful, lesbian photographer of Altman's abominable fashion farce "Ready to Wear (Pret-a-Porter)" later that same year. Abel Ferrara's "The Addiction" offered her a change-of-pace as a philosophy student-turned-vampire, and she was a member of a coven of witches headed by Madonna in "Four Rooms" (both 1995), generally acknowledged as one of the worst ensemble comedies since "Ready to Wear".
Director Mary Harron came to Taylor's rescue, giving her a chance to finally dominate a picture as the lead of the low-budget "I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996), a biopic about the deranged radical feminist Valerie Solanas who tried to kill the famed artist. Seizing on the mantra "clear vision in a crippled psyche" helped Taylor make sense of the delusional Solanas, and her brilliant performance brought her raves, as well as a special award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. Also shown at Sundance were "Girls Town", a coming of age story marking Taylor's debut as a screenwriter, and "Cold Fever", an Icelandic road movie in which she had a cameo as an argumentative hitchhiker. Meanwhile, her work in "The Addiction" had caught the attention of Ron Howard, who cast her as one of the kidnappers in that year's "Ransom", a rare foray to the mainstream mitigated by Howard's reputation as an actor's director.
After small parts on TV in "Night of Courage" (ABC, 1987), "Sensibility and Sense" (PBS, 1990) and the miniseries "Family of Spies" (CBS, 1990), Taylor eschewed the small screen until "Subway Stories: Tales From the Underground" (HBO, 1997), acting in "The Listeners" segment directed by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld. She guest-starred on two high-profile series during the 1997-98 season, appearing as Arley, the Buchman's nanny, in two episodes of "Mad About You" (NBC) and garnering an Emmy nomination for her work in the "Mind's Eye" episode of "The X-Files" (Fox). Her terrific portrayal of a blind woman who can "see" murders taking place revealed to a whole new audience her adept use of silence and stillness to capture the inner workings of character. Onstage, she appeared Off-Broadway in "Aven'U Boys" (1993) and played Irina in Scott Elliott's production of "The Three Sisters" at NYC's Roundabout Theatre in 1997.
Jumping at the chance to work with indie legend John Waters, Taylor played a savvy art gallery owner in his "Pecker" and also appeared in Stanley Tucci's "The Imposters" (both 1998) cast against type as the ingenue, the ship's social director who helps protect the titular stowaways essayed by Tucci and Oliver Platt. Back at Sundance in "A Slipping Down Life", based on the Anne Tyler novel, she instilled her seemingly plain and foolish Evie with depth, dignity, passion and beauty, whereas Jan De Bont's horror remake, "The Haunting" (both 1999), signaled that Taylor might be appearing more frequently in commercial projects. After dumping John Cusack in "High Fidelity" (2000), she starred as "Julie Johnson" (2001), a 31-year-old housewife whose simple desire to learn evolves into a story of self-discovery. She also co-starred, alongside Judy Davis and Marcia Gay Harden, in the comedy feature "Gaudi Afternoon" (2003). Meanwhile, the actress took her first major crack at series television when she began appearing on the acclaimed HBO drama "Six Feet Under" in 2002 as the doomed Lisa Kimmel, the long-platonic friend of Nate Fisher (Peter Krause) who ultimately becomes pregnant with his child and enters into a rocky marriage with the undertaker.