Madeleine Stowe's Been In A Lot Of Movies

ABC's Revenge isn't Madeleine Stowe's first time at the rodeo. For the past three years, Stowe's been playing the Hamptons' biggest bitch and most vicious matriarch, Victoria Grayson, on the ABC drama. But did you know that she's been all over Hollywood for more than three decades? Probably not — because she looks amazing, which explains why wherever she goes people are constantly trying to get on her age-defying secret.

So how did Madeleine Stowe end up playing one of the worst mothers on television and nominated for a Golden Globe? The 55-year-old actress fudged her acting resumé after being discovered by Richard Dreyfuss' agent. That sounds a lot like something Revenge's Victoria Grayson would do. Stowe appeared on television for the first time in 1978 on the ABC police drama, Baretta — she starred in a number of made-for-TV movies and televisions shows after that before getting her big break in 1987. The actress starred alongside Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss in Stakeout and so began her long string of feature films leading up to her role on Revenge.

As for which feature films, you're probably familiar with a handful of them — and you're definitely familiar with her leading men. Stowe's starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, John Travolta, Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, Brad Pitt, and Bruce Willis. Not too shabby, huh? Here are some of her biggest roles:

The Stakeout, 1987

Stowe played a Latina waitress that was the person of interest to Dreyfuss and Estevez's Seattle-based detectives. Dreyfuss' character bugs Stowe's apartment, which leads to a romance between the pair that compromises his objectivity in the case at hand. Can you blame him though?

The Two Jakes, 1990

In this sequel to Jack Nicholson's Chinatown , Stowe played the wife of the man who's murder Nicholson's private investigator, Jack Gittes, is investigating.

The Last of the Mohicans, 1992

Stowe played a recently-landed British colonist, Cora, alongside Day-Lewis' Hawkeye in this critically acclaimed film set during the French and Indian War. Cora gets swept up into the war and an epic romance that gives you the feels.

Short Cuts, 1993

Stowe starred alongside 21 other members of Hollywood's elite (that include Robert Downey Jr., Julianne Moore, and Frances Mcdormand) in this award-winning film directed by Robert Altman. She plays Sherri Shepard, a disenchanted wife to Tim Robbins' Gene — Stowe and the entire cast won a Golden Globe for their performance.

12 Monkeys, 1995

Stowe starred alongside two of the biggest Hollywood names of all time — Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt — in this sci-fi thriller featuring time travel and biological terrorism. From 2035, Willis travels back in time at the request of the government to help prevent a plague that wiped out the Earth's population. Stowe played scientist, Dr. Kathryn Railly, that Willis' character meets while imprisoned in a psychiatric facility in 1990. He later kidnaps her and forces her to help him on his quest.

Image: Touchstone, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Fine Line Features, Universal