Dear Hollywood: It's Time to Give Liza Lapira Something New to Do

I would like to take a moment to salute actress Liza Lapira. With roles in this week's Fast & Furious, as well as showing up recently on TV in Dollhouse, Dexter, and NCIS, Lapira is acheiving something that only a few actors accomplish -- she's on the road to creating what will perhaps be known as the "Liza Lapira Type," a character so specific that her very name becomes shorthand for the role.

Scriptwriters love a good character cliche. You know what I'm talking about -- the second- or third-banana who doesn't have to be fleshed out as a fully realized person, because they mainly exist to give the main characters someone to talk to about important plot points.

In cop movies, there's the Angry Lieutenant Who Calls the Lead a "Loose Cannon" (genre variations include the Angry Senior FBI Agent, the Angry Cubicle Farm Boss, and the Angry Army Sergeant.) In romantic comedies, you've got your Fat 'n Sassy Best Friend, although the more common current variable is the Stylish But Still Sassy Gay Best Friend. And what would the horror genre be without the Ethnic Guy Who Gets Hacked to Death First, or the Slutty Girl Who Runs Away from the Monster While Wearing a Tank Top?

Similarly, law enforcement procedurals have long relied on the presence of the Wet Behind the Ears New Agent (WBENA), for a couple of important reasons. First, it gives the main characters a reason to explain expository stuff that the screenwriters want us, the audience, to understand -- having your lead actor spit out a big ol' infodump of dialogue is a lot easier than figuring out a smart way to actually show us, rather than tell us. Also, someone has to fetch coffee and files, and process the evidence, and you certainly can't have your primary characters doing boring things that would, you know, be part of their jobs in real life.



Traditionally, the WBENA has been a young, white male, preferably dorky-looking with a squeaky voice. But in these more progressive times, studio execs and showrunners know that they have to be more inclusive when casting stereotypes. So why not make the WBENA a young woman? Or even better, a young Asian woman?

Which is where Liza Lapira comes in. Lapira's a good actress with solid New York stage work under her belt, and she's done what she could with small roles in films like Cloverfield and Domino, as well as the requisite one-offs on network TV. But it's as a WBENA that she's really making her mark. To wit:

NCIS: Lapira plays Agent Michelle Lee (nicknamed "Probie, Jr.") one of a trio of young agents brought in to work for NCIS as part of a super-secret sting to find a mole. Lee's the wide-eyed innocent of the group, which makes it all the more shocking when she turns out to be the murderous traitor in their midst! Plus, she gets away with it, which means she'll be coming back in future episodes. [EDIT: Some readers, who are smarter than I am, have commented below that Lapira did get her comeuppance via bullets-in-the-chest in a later episode ... apparently this was so traumatic for me that I blocked it from my memory. Or somehow missed that episode.)

Dollhouse: Lapira plays Ivy, one of the lab techs (or programmers, or whatever they are) who implant the information in Eliza Dushku's head. Mostly, she wears a lab coat and listens to other actors talk.

Fast & Furious: Lapira appears in several scenes as Agent Sophie Trinh, who sits at a desk and does all of the actual work for Paul Walker's character, so that Walker can get to the important business of driving cars and glowering at Vin Diesel.

Dexter: Okay, so Lapira's not really a WBENA here -- she plays Yuki Amado, an Internal Affairs officer who keeps trying to get Dex's sister, Debra, to play snitch. But she's still a cop, and she wears tailored suits, so it's close enough to count.

Liza Lapira -- I salute you. Making it in show business is tough, and a girl's gotta work. I'm sure you don't want to be the WBENA forever, and if there's any justice, you'll graduate to bigger, better roles in the future. But for now, you have created your own niche, and you've subverted a character cliche to invent an entirely new character cliche. Maybe some smarter, less limited writers will eventually provide something more satisfying than one-dimensional second bananas for you to play. At least, I hope they do, because I like you.