Jennifer Tilly

Jennifer Ellen Tilly (née Chan; September 16, 1958) is a Canadian-American actress and poker player. She is a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Olive Neal in the film Bullets over Broadway (1994). Her other film roles include Let It Ride (1989) Made in America (1993), Bound (1996), Liar Liar (1997) and Bride of Chucky (1998). She has done extensive voice-over work including Celia in Monsters, Inc. (2001). She is the older sister of actress Meg Tilly.

Her known voices include Celia Mae in Monsters, Inc., Grace in Home on the Range, Bonnie Swanson in Family Guy, Painting Paula in the Computeropolis series, and Mola in Quest.

Career
In 1983, Tilly had small roles and had a recurring guest role on Hill Street Blues as Gina Srignoli, a mobster's widow who becomes romantically involved with detective Henry Goldblume. She played Frasier Crane's seductive-but-ditzy date Candi Pearson on an episode of the fourth season of Cheers and appeared as a similar character on the eleventh season of Frasier.

She appeared as Garry's girlfriend on It's Garry Shandling's Show, which aired on Showtime. She was also cast as a high-end prostitute on the short-lived comedy Key West, alongside Fisher Stevens. In 1989, she had a prominent role in the comedy Let It Ride, starring Richard Dreyfuss. Tilly's breakthrough film role was as a singing waitress in The Fabulous Baker Boys in a role that was written specially for her by Steve Kloves. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Olive Neal, a hopelessly bad actress in Woody Allen's Bullets over Broadway but she lost to her co-star Dianne Wiest. In 1994, she also had a small role in The Getaway with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.

Tilly starred in Bound (1996), directed by The Wachowskis, which portrays a lesbian relationship her character has with Gina Gershon. She played Samantha Cole in the Jim Carrey comedy Liar Liar (1997). In Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000), she played a stripper and part-time dominatrix. She portrayed gossip columnist Louella Parsons in the Peter Bogdanovich historical drama The Cat's Meow (2001).

She gained additional popularity around that time for her portrayal of serial killer Tiffany Valentine in several of the Child's Play horror movie series. The character was first introduced in the fourth installment of the franchise, Bride of Chucky (1998), and subsequently appeared in Seed of Chucky (2004), Curse of Chucky (2013), and the most recent film, Cult of Chucky (2017). In Seed of Chucky, she plays a dual role, providing the voice for Tiffany and also playing an exaggerated version of herself.

In 2001, she starred as Crystal Allen in the Broadway revival of The Women. In 2002 she played Fanny Minafer in the made-for-TV remake of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons.

She is a semi-regular cast member on Family Guy, voicing the Griffin family's neighbor, Bonnie Swanson. She has also done voice-over work for the films Monsters, Inc., Stuart Little and Home on the Range, as well as the children's series Hey Arnold!. In Disney's The Haunted Mansion, she portrays Madame Leota (a head in a crystal ball). She has been active in the theatre, winning a Theater World Award for her performance in the off-Broadway play One Shoe Off.

She had a starring role on the sitcom Out of Practice, which starred Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing. The series was cancelled in May 2006. About this time, Tilly started dividing her time between her film career and professional poker. By the end of 2008, she returned to her film and television career. In 2009, Tilly made her Chinese film debut in the Christina Yao film Empire of Silver playing Mrs. Landdeck.

In 2012, she returned to Broadway in Don't Dress for Dinner, garnering an Audience Choice Award nomination for her portrayal of mistress Suzanne. In 2013, she starred in the Wallace Shawn/Andre Gregory collaboration Grasses of a Thousand Colors which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009 and then moved to the Joseph Papp Theater in 2013. She regularly appeared in the comedy revue Celebrity Autobiography.

As of 2017, she has two films in post-production: Eric Balfour's feature film directorial debut Walk to Vegas, and Alan Rudolph's drama film Ray Meets Helen.