Morena Baccarin

Morena Baccarin was born in Rio de Janeiro to an actress mother and a journalist father, moved to New York at seven when her father was transferred there, and went through the theatre programme at Juilliard. Almost none of that showed in the early casting, which for a decade treated her as an exotic beauty and left her to work out the rest herself.

Firefly was the first real chance and she took it sideways. Inara is written as a courtesan and could have been decorative. Baccarin plays her as the most composed person on the ship and the only one whose composure is obviously a defence. Serenity carried that performance to film. Stargate SG-1 and V followed, both casting her as a serene alien with hidden intent, which she was quietly excellent at and which was starting to look like a ceiling.

Homeland broke the ceiling. Jessica Brody is not glamorous, not mysterious and not enjoying herself: she is a woman whose husband came back from a war unrecognisable, and Baccarin played that exhaustion well enough to earn an Emmy nomination. Gotham gave her a rare chance to be plainly warm, the Deadpool films gave her a girlfriend part with actual jokes in it, and Sheriff Country has at last handed her a network series of her own to lead.