Karen Sillas

[Wendigo]

Karen Sillas (born June 5, 1963) is an American stage and film actress.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0798076/

Liebestraum, Risk, Peter Benchley's The Beast etc,

Credit to the OP's

[Wendigo]

....and

[warwickshireman]

Just a couple

[spartaneric]

credit o.p.

[spartaneric]

credit o.p.

[Findcandor]

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(Gallery View)



It was not my intention to prepare this post on an actress I was not familiar with, but since I learned this more-than-a-decade old VEF thread devoted to her has only four posts, I'm glad to be making an addition.

The reason for this post is because I encountered an actress who had a nude scene, and I think no one has paid mind to this nude scene. (Virgin territory, I tell you.) Trouble is, the actress is elusive (or was, until I finally figured her out), appearing differently in the few films of hers that I sought, trying to pin down her identity. One of those films was Simple Men. This was a quirky film directed by Hal Hartley that dimly started coming back to me (as I had watched it years ago), from 1992, or early in the career of Karen Sillas.



Karen's professional screen acting career "really" began in 1990, when she was twenty-seven (save for a couple of short films that came earlier), and Simple Men served as her first starring role. As an example, she appears to have had the bit part of a nurse the year before, in a movie serving as Kim Novak's last role. (I know this, because Karen led me to prepare this post on Kim Novak. Karen has led me to compose several VEF posts I would have never considered.)




What impressed me about Karen in Simple Men was the way she exudes a kind of a haunted soul. From what else of hers that I have come across, even in roles that are not all that serious (as with Sour Grapes below). I can't help picking up on this "sensitivity" of hers. There is something dignified, and perhaps sad, about her. (The men in Simple Men may be simple, but Karen is complicated.)




Her first television starring role was in a 1990 episode of Monsters entitled, "Bug House." Of course, this was a low-budget and non-mainstream production, where it was easier for beginning actors to break in, but the fact that she snagged a starring role straight out of the gate is meaningful. She's not very expressive in whatever I've seen her in (she likes being "dark," I think), but here she let loose more easily, in the following portraiture study.






Her next feature film role, where she again starred, was Risk, from 1993. A chance encounter on a bus leads to romance (ergo, the lady takes a "risk"), only what Karen's character doesn't know is that her new boyfriend is a wacko. Not in the sense that he turns into a serial killer, just that the poor guy is troubled, and the audience evidently has to keep guessing how demented he really is. I'm guessing Karen was especially attracted to this project, not only because the director was a woman, but because she felt this was an "artistic" indie. (If you conduct a search for this film, it appears to have fallen off the radar.) The following shots, unlike the rest of almost all of the images in this post (which are original frame grabs) are from the web. Wendigo also offered a few photos in Post #1 from this film (top of page), some blurry.


Since this was a "serious" film, it was the first time Karen appears to have felt comfortable
with shedding her clothing. She's a nude model for an art class.

A reviewer wrote: "Sillas looks wise beyond her years and brings to the role a been-there-done- that fatalism." Why, that's exactly the point I made. (Don't you hate plagiarists?)


Karen's next film was another starring role, and another "artsy" indie. What Happened Was.. from 1994 explores behavior between a man and a woman, when they date.



In 1994 she broke through with "big-time" TV (take that, "Monsters"), in an episode of Law and Order, and then the biggest opportunity landed her way, a starring role in Under Suspicion (1994-1995). She played a detective in an Oregonian homicide squad, the only woman, thus creating jealousy in her male colleagues. It didn't catch on, unfortunately for Karen, lasting only one season.




She then took on a role we will forever be grateful to her for taking. Her reasons for agreeing on the nudity probably had to do with the edgy, or "artistic" content, and the fact that the film was helmed by a female director may not have hurt.

Female Perversions from 1996 centers on a successful lawyer, played by Tilda Swinton (yes, Karen forced me to put up a post in Tilda's VEF thread as well), who has it all, despite complications in her personal life. She is ruthless and calculating, especially in sexual matters ("female perversions"... get it?). I didn't yet have the chance to carefully watch, but any film that involves perversions... especially female perversions... why, sign me up.



In other words, the central character craves sexual satisfaction, without care for the emotional involvement, much as a man does, or at least what men are criticized for. (Although this behavior might be in place on the road to her evolution, while she discovers she is needy, after all.) Karen plays a young psychiatrist picked up in an elevator, and my impression is that Tilda "dominates" the innocent thing, although maybe I'm thinking that because I'd like to imagine it to be so. There is a line after the seduction scene, where Tilda tries to persuade Karen to meet again. (Karen says: "...You had five orgasms, I only had three. And now you are so desperate to see me?")








So after the fun and games, looks like it's Karen who has the upper hand.




Karen's career picked up steam at this point, and she waved bye-bye to the "art," and went all out with a "Hollywood" production, the two-part mini-series that was produced in the same year (of Female Perversions), 1996, entitled The Beast. The novel was written by Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, and this one is not too different, except there is a giant squid in place of the shark.



In the last image, our heroine is mighty close to the deadly tentacles below.


Now that the actress "sold out," she appeared in other "commercial" titles, as with the comedy, Sour Grapes, directed by Larry David (from 1998, a very busy year for her). The film concerned two men whose friendship is tested when one wins the lottery through coins borrowed from the other. Karen had a nude scene, although nothing may be seen, unless one travels frame-by-frame (see last shot), and even then, hardly anything may be seen. (For God's sake, bring back the "art" pictures.)




In 1999, she had a quick role in the hit television series, The Sopranos.



Karen played the classiest madam since Xaviera Hollander.



One of the other VEF threads Karen forced me to prepare a post for was that of Sofia Milos (who played an especially delectable character in the gangster drama), and while there, I discovered how Member "MVP" put up a photo (in his Post #13 from 2013) that happened to include Karen, and I'm only too pleased to steal it to supplement my own frame grab views. This photo also features an actress (she's at right, below) whom I placed a post for on VEF as well. Karen sure can be influential.




In 1999, she appeared in a thriller, about a father who must save his kidnapped son before a bomb goes off. Karen played a cop in this TV movie, As Time Runs Out.



Karen worked steadily until 2005, capping off with a "coup" of a role, appearing in eight episodes of the TV series Wanted, about an elite squad that goes after the most hardened criminals. It lasted for only one season.


A beauty shot of the lovely lady from the web.

Then she took a mysterious break that lasted nearly a decade. Upon her return, she appeared in three titles, including an episode for a TV series, from 2014 to 2015. Of the two remaining feature films, one was Stuff, directed by a woman, and about the troubles of a lesbian couple. (A return to "art.") Karen played the mother of one.




She then took another long break, and returned in 2020's T11 Incomplete. Same director as the one for Stuff, and probably their personal relationship played a big role in luring Karen back to the fold. She plays a recovering alcoholic who has no one, working as a home health care nurse. She then falls for her paraplegic patient and the good news is, probably since it's "art," Karen took her clothes off again. She was fifty-seven here, and while some may say time could have been kinder toward her wonderful face, when she takes down the panties, it's hard for anyone to argue with the results.










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[softcorefan1994]