12 Awesome Supporting Actors Who Need Their Own Movies

3. Ann Dowd

Ann Dowd is a veteran character actress who has been working regularly since the early 1990s, and yet her extensive TV and film work largely went under the radar until 2012, when she received awards buzz for her fantastic performance in indie thriller Compliance.

Because the studio wouldn't fund an awards campaign for Dowd, she had to finance it herself and almost went bankrupt as a result. Though she didn't land an Oscar nod, she did win a career-changing National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Almost immediately thereafter, Dowd began to be cast left and right in major Hollywood movies, giving especially memorable performances recently in American Animals and Hereditary. Ultimately, though, she's probably best remembered for her exemplary TV work on The Leftovers and The Handmaid's Tale.

And with the rich gravitas Dowd brings to the table, it's simply astounding she's been slept on for so long, and even today, she's still without the mighty cache of starring roles you'd expect given her talent.

Perhaps it speaks to Hollywood's general aversion to bankrolling movies led by women over the age of 60, but with all the will in the world, Dowd deserves to be a mega-star.