Who

Actress Parker Posey has been described as "Queen of the Indies" by Time, so you know it must be true.

Backstory

Born in Baltimore and raised in Mississippi—her dad owned a Chevy dealership—Posey moved to New York to attend SUNY Purchase, where she shared a dorm room with actress Sherry Stringfield. Posey's first acting role was on the very un-indie As the World Turns; she spent a year on the soap before winning her first film role: a bitchy high-school senior in Richard Linklater's 1993 cult favorite Dazed and Confused. Posey became an inescapable indie presence in the '90s thanks to films like The House of Yes and The Daytrippers, as well as her popularity with artsy directors Hal Hartley (Flirt, Henry Fool), Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming), and Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show).

Of note

Posey has never become a mainstream star, but that isn't because she's lacked big-budget Hollywood ambitions. She was up for the romantic lead in Speed (she lost out to Sandra Bullock, of course) and has had to content herself with mostly supporting roles in a handful of bland, often awful big-studio films like Scream 3, You've Got Mail, Josie and the Pussycats, Blade: Trinity and Superman Returns. But few have been as ubiquitous in the world of indie film. She's had roles in Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh's The Anniversary Party, Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity, essentially everything Christopher Guest has done in recent years, and Zoe Cassavetes' directorial debut Broken English. In 2008, she appeared in The Eye, a thriller in which she took a back seat to noted thespian Jessica Alba. Posey also made her sitcom debut as the titular character on Fox's critically-savaged The Return of Jezebel James, which was canceled after a mere three episodes.

Shill

In 2006, she squandered some more of her hard-won hipster cred by shooting a Pepsi ad with the world's unfunniest comic, Jimmy Fallon.

In person

Posey's been indulging her inner hippie crackpot as of late. She credits a trip to New Mexico to study yoga and Ayurvedic medicine with giving up caffeine and cigarettes. The attractively disheveled actress is frequently seen out and about below 14th Street walking her white Bichon-Maltese mix, Gracie.

Personal

A former flame of author Thomas Beller and Irish actor Stuart Townsend, Posey had a lengthy romance with troubled troubadour Ryan Adams before the couple split up in 2005. She lives at 30 Fifth Avenue, in an apartment she paid $1.35 million for in 2007, and spends weekends at her home in Ghent, NY.