Working Actor: Where You ve Seen Mary Elizabe...

She may only show up briefly in A Good Day to Die Hard, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been steadily breaking through for a few years now. Were taking a look at her journey to recognizability.

After cutting her teeth on television, in both daytime and primetime soaps -- as a good girl amid witches and demons and hell portals on NBCs Passions; a troubled teen on CBSs short-lived Wolf Lake -- Mary Elizabeth Winstead jumped into films and almost right away began making a reputation for herself as a fresh face in genre movies. And if youre looking to build a solid base for a mainstream career, building loyalty among fanboy culture with Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, and John McClane is a good start. Now that shes getting lead roles and Independent Spirit Award nominations and such, maybe its time to get to know where we know her from.

Working Actor: Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Youve Most Likely Seen Her In...

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Fanboys the world over fell head over heels for Winstead as fuchsia-haired dream-girl Ramona Flowers. Fans of the hyper-effortful winking odes to slack that are the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels ate up every disaffected gesture she was putting down. The movie didnt exactly rip it up at the box office, but it reached the right people, i.e. the ruling class of comic-book guys whose taste guides mainstream Hollywood these days.

Unless Youve Really Been Paying Attention, in Which Case You Remember Her From ...

It may be the one Quentin Tarantino movie even he wont stand behind, but Death Proof was a great platform for Winstead. As part of a foursome with Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Zoe Bell, she got to bite into equal shares Tarantino dialogue and Tarantino action.

"Wait, So Shes That Girl From..."

...A whole bunch of throwaway horror remakes and/or sequels that are perfectly acceptable Friday-night DVD entertainment. Final Destination 3 is a Final Destination movie, which makes it wonderful. Black Christmas and The Thing were both pale imitations of their more thrilling originals, but they remained sufficiently dark enough to not be embarrassing. The good news for Winstead was that she emerged from both of those remakes remarkably unscathed. Thats the good thing about not being a big enough name to take the fall for failure.

You Can Also Go Back and Spot Her In ...

Winstead was an antagonist in the well-reviewed but little seen teen-superhero movie Sky High. She was cast as Bruce Williss daughter in Live Free or Die Hard, (and as mentioned before, can be seen briefly in last weekends big release, A Good Day to Die Hard). She was one face in a sea of thousands in Emilio Estevezs problematic historical drama, Bobby.

Shes Super Hot Right Now Because Of...

...Smashed. Winstead got crazy-good reviews for her performance as one half of a marriage of alcoholics. She and Aaron Paul as the couple are by far the best part of the movie, and Winstead pulled down an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her trouble. Its an important career milestone in its own right, but even more important because it gives Winstead a foothold in the world of non-genre dramas. Perhaps casting directors will start looking at her with more varied possibilities in mind.

Of course, she was also seen by millions more people as Mary Todd Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, so maybe genre films are just going to be her thing.

Get Onboard Early For ...

After the success of Smashed, Winstead was back at Sundance this year, albeit in supporting roles, in the Adam Scott comedy A.C.O.D. and the Miles Teller/Shailene Woodley teen romance The Spectacular Now. So expect even more from M.E.W. in 2013.

More from Tribeca:

Working Actor: Radha Mitchell

Working Actor: Where Youve Seen Josh Hamilton Before

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