No stranger to TV (or drama), actress KaDee Strickland is set to star as Christy Crawford, wife of accused child murderer Ben Crawford (played by the former Mr. Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe), on ABC’s new drama, Secrets And Lies. What is Secrets And Lies, you ask? The show, which premieres on March 1, is about a man who, while jogging in the woods, discovers the body of his neighbor’s son. When he tries to revive the young boy, he leaves plenty of physical evidence all over the kid (which, come on, dude, haven’t you seen CSI or Law & Order? You touch nothing!). This implicates him in the crime.
A detective (played by Juliette Lewis) thinks he killed the boy, and she’ll stop at nothing to find out the truth. Thus, according to ABC, “the secrets and lies of this town come to the surface and no one is above suspicion.” If it sounds kind of familiar, well, it is. The series seems like one of those oft-produced dead-kid dramas (like ITV’s Broadchurch or, most recently, FOX’s Gracepoint, which were basically the same show), but it’s nice to see actresses of both Lewis and Strickland’s caliber back on television. Private Practice, Strickland's last TV series, has been off the air for a few years now, so what has Strickland been doing in the meantime?
Though you may know Strickland’s face from her many acting roles, you may not have known her name. She’s a horror movie veteran — her first acting gig was in The Sixth Sense, in which she played “Visitor #5”. She then made some appearances in movies like Girl, Interrupted, Something’s Gotta Give, and The Stepford Wives (a movie Nicole Kidman would sure love to forget) before heading back to her horror roots in The Grudge and the Drew Barrymore/Jimmy Fallon film Fever Pitch (okay, maybe that’s only a horror film if you’re a Yankees fan).
Strickland landed a plumb acting gig as Dr. Charlotte King on the Shonda Rhimes Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice. The character of King had quite the arc on her run on the show: In the course of six years, Charlotte had a very tumultuous relationship with pediatrician Cooper Freedman (though they eventually married), watched her father die, suffered a horrific rape and assault, got addicted to pills, took in her husband’s illegitimate son, and gave birth to a trio of all-girl triplets. Quite a bit in the span of half a decade, huh?
Besides her extensive acting experience, Strickland also has experience with alien encounters…sort of. She married Roswell alum Jason Behr in November 2006 in Ojai, California. The couple welcomed son Atticus in October 2013. A little half-alien baby!
Strickland will be a working mom now that she’s landed her role on Secrets And Lies. Will you be watching this weekend? My jury’s still out on Ryan Phillippe (I’m still not over him and Reese), but I’m in it for Strickland.
Images: Getty Images
