Stars to Watch: Lana Parrilla (Updated)

Wallpaper image from ABC.com (click to embiggen)

UPDATE (02/28/12):

I just thought I'd revisit this little nugget from May 2010. I'm not always right, but I was on this one. My favorite Swingtown star has become a sensation on ABC's Once Upon a Time in the dual role of Regina Mills and of course, the Evil Queen! I'll confess to liking OUaT quite a bit, even though I really only tuned in to see Lana Parrilla. Having only seen her in sweet (yet slinky) roles, I had no idea she could chew the scenery quite so well playing wicked!

ORIGINAL POST (05/29/10):

I'm feeling a little of the pop-culture vibe as I write this. I just watched last night's Miami Medical, the cancelled CBS medical drama.  It took a couple of episodes for me to notice that Lana Parrilla was one of the stars, since her character was so far away from the one I knew her from, that of Trina Decker on Swingtown.

Image (Molly Parker, Miriam Shor, Lana Parrilla) from GrooveEFortune

Swingtown was a drama on CBS last summer, an unusual piece of 70s pastiche with a dollop of taboo sexuality.  Parrilla was not the name "star" of the show, but there is no doubt that she was the most memorable part of it. I say this as a person of the gay persuasion who had much to be fond of with Grant Show, Jack Davenport, Michael Rady, Mark Valley and Josh Hopkins. But Parrilla was really something special.  The cast of Swingtown was extraordinary, and the way they captured middle America 1976 was only equalled by--possibly--the movie Dazed and Confused.  It's a crying shame that the show didn't get a second season pickup.  The cast has scattered to the winds (though only a couple have landed in hit shows), and will likely never be captured in quite that way again.

And it would seem that Parrilla is a little cursed when it comes to landing in a program with staying power. But she will, I'm fairly certain. She's awesome. She's beautiful, sexy, vulnerable and utterly believable.  Here's hoping that she lands on her feet in a new or established show that really puts her on the map. But I'm still hoping to see Trina Decker again, in some form, somewhere.  If they could put the Deckers into a spinoff with straight laced Janet (Miriam Shor), I'd be really excited.