Hollywood's Australian import Kate Beahan first established herself by essaying two back-to-back A-list roles as a seemingly innocent young woman with satanically evil hidden agendas. She played the stewardess kidnapper Stephanie (Peter Sarsgaard's accomplice) in German helmer Robert Schwentke's thriller Flightplan (2005), and followed it up with the role of the former girlfriend, Willow, who uses the story of a "missing child" to lure Nicolas Cage's Edward Malus straight into a funeral pyre, in Neil LaBute's disappointing horror remake, The Wicker Man (2006).
Born in the late 1970s in Perth, Australia, Beahan landed her first major cinematic role on her native soil, as Tanya the brothel keeper, in Chopper (2000), Andrew Dominik's biopic about the notorious, psychotically violent Aussie criminal Mark "Chopper" Read. When Beahan transitioned to Hollywood shortly thereafter -- using the Chopper role as her ticket to representation -- casting agents typed her as an "exotic," and thus frequently asked her to audition in competition with such actresses as Eva Mendes, perhaps because they were unsure how to "pigeonhole" her. Beahan landed her first bit part in an A-lister as The Coat Check Girl in 2003's The Matrix Revolutions, and appeared alongside Jodie Foster, Sean Bean, and Peter Sarsgaard in Flightplan. The role of Willow in The Wicker Man followed, as did an appearance in Asif Kapadia's supernatural thriller The Return, with Sarah Michelle Gellar as a Midwestern girl plagued by otherworldly visions. Beahan also appears in neophyte director Abe Levy's 2007 drama One of Our Own, a Baby M-like story about the struggle between an infertile couple and a surrogate mother (Beahan) who has agreed to birth their child. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide