Woman Crush Wednesday: Lily Rabe Stirs Things Up in ‘The Undoing’

As Thanksgiving is upon us, whether we are with family or feasting solo, we revel in this time of gratitude, friendship, and lots and lots of pie. One of the things we’re most grateful for is the opportunity to have one last Woman Crush Wednesday before digging into Thanksgiving dinners and moving on to December. Today we’re celebrating a brilliant and multi-talented woman who has conquered both stage and screen with ease over the last two decades. So, without further ado, give it up for this week’s WCW, the remarkable Lily Rabe!

WHO’S THAT GAL: Lily Rabe

WHY WE’RE CRUSHING: Rabe plays Sylvia Steinetz in the series finale of HBO Original psychological thriller miniseries The Undoing, which airs on the platform this Sunday, November 29th. The show focuses on Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman), a successful therapist, her devoted husband, Jonathan (Hugh Grant), and their young son, Henry (Noah Jupe), who attends an elite private school in New York City. A chasm opens in Grace’s seemingly perfect life: a violent death, a missing spouse, and a chain of terrible revelations. Rabe’s Sylvia is Grace’s best friend and a big gossip who is often in the center of knowing the latest drama going down in their elite circle. With the dramatic events (THE MURDER WEAPON HAS BEEN FOUND, PEOPLE!) of the show’s penultimate episode in mind, there’s no doubt that Grace will have plenty to talk to Sylvia about, and even if she doesn’t, we’re pretty sure that our gal is going to find out. See Rabe’s great work in The Undoing‘s finale, only on HBO Max.

WHY WE’RE CRUSHING: Rabe began her professional acting career in 2001 with the role of Tess in comedy film Never Again. That was only the beginning in what would turn out to be a lot and consistent string of great work on both film and television, appearing in movies like 2003 drama Mona Lisa Smile, 2007 romantic comedy-drama No Reservations, 2008 satirical comedy-drama What Just Happened, 2010 romantic crime-drama All Good Things, and 2011 sci-fi drama Letters from the Big Man, as well as in shows like Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Nip/Tuck, Medium, Saving Grace, and The Good Wife all before landing a role that helped define the next course of her career.

In 2011, Rabe starred as Nora Montgomery in the first season of Ryan Murphy FX horror anthology series, American Horror Story: Murder House. Along with Sarah Paulson and Evan Peterson, Rabe has appeared in eight out of nine total seasons of the series, which has accrued 28 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and has won a total of 138 official awards.

Following the beginning of her long and prosperous relationship with American Horror Story, Rabe continued to thrive on screens big and small, with roles in films like 2014 biographical drama Pawn Sacrifice, 2016 supernatural horror The Veil, 2016 comedy-drama Miss Stevens (alongside a pre-Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird Timothée Chalamet), 2017 adaptation of classic Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Academy Award-nominated 2018 biographical comedy-drama Vice, and 2019 heist thriller Finding Steve McQueen, as well as guest or starring roles in shows like The Whispers, Regular Show in Space, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and Legion.

Rabe is also known for her fantastic body of work live on stage, most notably her performance as Portia in a 2010 to 2011 run of The Merchant of Venice. Working alongside Al Pacino as Shylock, Rabe’s incredible work earned her Outstanding/Best Actress in a Play nominations from both the Drama Desk and Tony Awards in 2011. With a list of credits as long and impressive as this, it is no doubt that Rabe is a bonafide star who will be around and cranking out impeccable performances for many years to come.

WHERE YOU’LL SEE HER AGAIN: With four projects on the horizon, you have plenty of Rabe to look forward to in the next year or two to come. First, you can catch her playing the recurring role of Ethel Wells in upcoming Amazon Video historical fiction drama series The Underground Railroad, which is set to premiere either by the end of this year or early in 2021. In an alternate timeline, the Underground Railroad, in reality a network of abolitionists, hidden routes, and safe houses that helped runaway slaves escape to freedom in the early to mid-1800s, is an actual railroad complete with engineers, conductors, tracks, and tunnels. Georgia slave Cora (Thuso Mbedu) joins newcomer Caesar (Aaron Pierre) in an effort to ride the subterranean train to freedom.

You can also look forward to seeing her as the lead role of Emma in Amazon Prime Video thriller drama series Tell Me Your Secrets. The show, which comes out in 2021, follows three characters, each with a mysterious and troubling past: Emma (Rabe) is a young woman who once looked into the eyes of a dangerous killer, John (Rabe’s real-life partner, Hamish Linklater) is a former serial predator desperate to find redemption, and Mary (Amy Brenneman) is a grieving mother obsessed with finding her missing daughter. As each of them is pushed to the edge, the truth about their pasts and motives grows ever murkier, blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator.

Rabe is also set to executive produce upcoming HBO Drama series The Big D, which is set in Dallas in the 1980s and follows a triangle of women as their lives collide to unearth a secret past involving the city’s would-be First Lady, Pat Pangburn, and her mysterious bout of amnesia, as well as return with a new role in a future season of American Horror Story, both of which are expected in either 2021 or 2022.

For even more from Rabe in the meantime, you can follow her on Instagram.

Watch The Undoing on HBO Max