Everyone — especially us Alias fans — is excited to witness Jennifer Garner's return to the small screen in Apple TV's upcoming adaptation of Laura Dave's The Last Thing He Told Me. While the thriller miniseries stars huge names including Garner, Aisha Tyler and Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, plenty of up-and-coming stars are working their craft alongside these veteran actors.
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One of those rising stars is Angourie Rice, who plays Garner's stepdaughter, Bailey.
At just 22 years old, Rice has already earned a solid reputation in Hollywood as an actress to watch — literally. She was named as such in Variety Magazine in 2022. And let's just say she's lived up to the hype. Her upcoming role in The Last Thing He Told Me is just the latest in a string of buzz-worthy performances.
So, who is Angourie Rice? Let's take a closer look.
She's Australian
Rice hails from Sydney, Australia. While she has big-city roots, she was actually named after a small surfing town in New South Wales where her grandmother lived. But, luckily for us, she didn't devote herself to catching waves and instead followed in her parents' creative footsteps.
Seeing as how her mother wrote plays and her father directed them, it didn't take long for young Rice to learn the ropes of performance art. She landed her first short film role at the tender age of 6 and continued to appear in various shorts filmed in Western Australia. One of those, a post-apocalyptic project titled Transmission, gained her industry attention and a Best Actress award from the St. Kilda Film Festival. She was just 11 years old.
Rice continued to balance work and school, landing small roles in series such as Mako Mermaids and The Doctor Blake Mysteries. She even appeared in a few feature films including These Final Hours and Nowhere Boys: The Book of Shadows, in which she played a villain. But with a hot start to her career, it was only a matter of time before she started appearing opposite bigger names.
She Had Her Breakout Role At Age 15
In 2014, everything changed for the young actress and her family. While riding bikes with her mother, she got the call that she had landed a role opposite Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in the action-comedy blockbuster The Nice Guys. At the time, she told The Sydney Morning Herald that she hadn't expected much from her second audition and was stunned to receive the news.
"All I said was, 'Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,'" she said back in 2014. "I was overwhelmed by what it would mean, for us as a family, and for school."
Because her career has only grown since that life-altering call, it's safe to say she figured out the whole school thing. Rice graduated high school and went on to star in more feature films such as The Beguiled, Every Day and Ladies in Black. She even had a role opposite Miley Cyrus in an episode of Black Mirror.
She's A Part Of The Spiderman Universe
Her next major career movie came in 2019, when she appeared as Betty Brant, a friend of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Far From Home. This was seemingly the role that pushed Rice into full Hollywood stardom, as she would reprise it over and over again in future Spiderman films and the TV series The Daily Bugle.
While she told The Hollywood Reporter that she's not necessarily a "superfan" of the comic book series, she loved playing Betty and being a part of the larger Marvel universe. "There are always so many Easter eggs, and sometimes I miss them until I actually see the film in cinemas. And then I'm like, 'Ohh! I see what they did there.'"
In the midst of her Spiderman legacy, she also played a pivotal role alongside Kate Winslet in the HBO miniseries Mare of Easttown. Taking on the part of Winslet's daughter was an "emotional challenge" to the actress, but she told THR that her connection to the character proved helpful.
"I connected with Siobhan especially because I felt quite similar," she said. "Growing up on set and working in an adult, professional environment, I had to be this little grown-up. And Siobhan also had to grow up really quickly. She's a mini adult in her family, and she keeps everyone together. So I really connected to that aspect of her story."
She Runs A Podcast
In addition to all of her acting gigs, Rice also hosts a fortnightly podcast called The Community Library, in which she discusses the art of storytelling as well as how — and why — we tell stories. She told PureWow that she describes the show as a "book club for anyone interested in storytelling."
"I had just graduated high school and I knew I wasn't going to [college] straight away, but I wanted a way to keep reading and talking about books. I also wanted to make it accessible to everyone and not scary. But it did begin as a self-improvement project. Now, I'm really happy that I get to share it with people."
How To Watch The Last Thing He Told Me
The Last Thing He Told Me follows the story of Hannah (Garner), who's trying to uncover the truth behind her husband's disappearance. Rice stars alongside Garner, Coster-Waldau and Tyler in the upcoming Apple TV series — set to debut on April 14.
The platform will release two episodes of the miniseries initially and then release one episode every week through May 19.
READ MORE: 'The Last Thing He Told Me': Everything Fans Need to Know About Jennifer Garner's New Thriller Series
