Samantha Mathis

I literally cannot tell you how many times I have seen Samantha Mathis bold and fearless, her naturally blonde hair dyed black. She’s thought of as a supporting role in Pump Up the Volume, but I think people probably underestimate how much the movie relies on her performance. It’s not just the scenes she’s in that her costar is not. She has to be the one with passion. She’s been around longer, and she knows how things work there. Mark is an outsider. Nora has been there probably since she was a freshman. She matters to the story as more than just the girl Mark’s getting involved with.

Mathis, meanwhile, has also been around a bit. Specifically, she’s the third generation of her family to be an actress. Her mother was actress Bibi Besch, best known as Carol Marcus in Star Trek II. Her grandmother was Austrian actress Gusti Huber. Her mother tried to discourage her from acting, but Mathis, who grew up watching her mother, always knew it was what she wanted to do. She got her start acting in a commercial for Always pads for teens. She was on two shows that failed to last a full season.

Pump Up the Volume was her first starring role. By all rights it should’ve been a stepping stone to more things. I mean, Fern Gully, I suppose, and don’t get me wrong—I like Fern Gully. But the great roles of which she was capable don’t really seem to have followed. I can’t help wondering if she’s the person who suffered the most fallout from the failure of Super Mario Bros., which admittedly I’ve never seen because why would I do that. Maybe she prefers the indie scene, but she hasn’t had as many successes there as she should; her name doesn’t come up much.

She did, however, spend two years as the National Vice President, Actors/Performers of SAG-AFTRA. And you know I respect anyone doing good union work. Honestly, I feel as though Mathis has a ton of great stories. Both from her own life and from watching her mother’s career. She may not have been in as many well-known movies as I’d like, but she has worked with a surprising number of greats, including quite a lot of stuff based on Stephen King works—and a failed pilot for Locke & Key, by one of Steve’s sons.

One of the stories she took a very long time to tell was of being there on that fateful night at the Viper Room. She had broken up with John Leguizamo to date River Phoenix—the ‘90s, everyone—and while she knew he was high, she didn’t actually see him do the drugs that killed him. She didn’t talk about it publicly for decades and I would imagine still doesn’t much like to. She apparently loved him very much and knew she couldn’t change him, which is a struggle every addict’s loved ones know. What do you do?