Emmanuelle Vaugier
Emmanuelle Vaugier is an actor, born 1976.
Recurring is the operative word. Emmanuelle Vaugier has built a career out of arcs rather than leads: Dr. Helen Bryce on Smallville, Mia on Two and a Half Men, Detective Jessica Angell on CSI: NY, FBI Special Agent Emma Barnes on Human Target, Liza Hearn on Covert Affairs, Maura on Andromeda, and Evony Fleurette Marquise, the Morrigan, on Lost Girl. That is a specific professional skill: arriving mid-run into an established cast and getting the audience to accept you within an episode.
Horror is the other half of it. She played Addison Corday in Saw II in 2005 and came back for Saw IV in 2007, and around those sit Mirrors 2, House of the Dead 2, Wishmaster 3, Dolan's Cadillac, Unearthed and Pro-Life. Twenty-seven of her thirty-nine credits are films, and most of those films are genre pictures made fast.
What she does well is composure pitched slightly too smooth, a woman visibly running a calculation while she talks to you. That is why the Morrigan works better than any of the detectives: it is the one part written to enjoy itself, and playing it she is funnier and looser than the procedural work ever let her be.
The mainstream film credits are smaller than the television suggests. Susie in 40 Days and 40 Nights in 2002, and a minor part in Secondhand Lions in 2003, a film headlined by Michael Caine and Robert Duvall.
Movies (27)
- Saw II (2005)
- Saw IV (2007)
- Secondhand Lions (2003)
- Mirrors 2 (2010)
- 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
- Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)
- Killer Mountain (2011)
- Eat Wheaties! (2020)
- Teen Lust (2014)
- Far Cry (2008)
- A Nanny for Christmas (2010)
- Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation (2008)
- House of the Dead 2 (2006)
- Cerberus (2005)
- Dolan's Cadillac (2009)
- Destruction: Los Angeles (2020)
- Unearthed (2007)
- Blonde and Blonder (2008)
- Absolute Deception (2013)
- Saul: The Journey to Damascus (2014)
- Hidden Away (2013)
- Big Sky River (2022)
- Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss (2004)
- Pro-Life (2006)
- Ripper: Letter from Hell (2001)
- Washed Away (2017)
- Love in Paradise (2016)
TV (12)
Where to start with Emmanuelle Vaugier
Go straight to Lost Girl. The Morrigan lets her be vain and funny in a way the procedurals never did, and the series gives her the longest leash of anything on this list. You do not need to love urban fantasy to enjoy what she does with it.
Saw II is the horror credit worth having, a nasty and well-constructed sequel that gave the franchise its shape, and Saw IV is there if you want the follow-through.
For the network television years, Smallville is the earliest significant arc and Two and a Half Men is the one most people have actually seen, where a recurring girlfriend part gets a bit more shading than that show usually bothered with. CSI: NY gave her the longest run as a straight professional and it is the least interesting thing she does.
Human Target is the pick of the leftovers, a stylish action series and a good showcase for the slightly amused register she defaults to.