Kim Dickens may be an unrecognizable name, but she is certainly a recognizable face. In the past several years, Dickens has had prominent roles in some of the most acclaimed television shows of all time, Sons of Anarchy, Treme, House of Cards, Lost, and Friday Night Lights just to name a few. In each of these shows she has been a strong supporting presence without ever failing to leave a resonating performance, however little screen time she may have in some of the shows. She has become one of the most reliable actresses in television, always turning in very honest and relatable performances, so why don’t people know who she is yet?
That’s not to say that the general North American audience isn’t starting to take notice of her. In 2014 she played detective Rhonda Boney in David Fincher’s widely seen cultural phenomenon, Gone Girl. As Boney, Dickens is the audiences’ way into the twisted story of Nick and Amy Dunne because she’s the only character in the film who doesn’t have some sort of secret to hide, and like the audience, she just wants to figure out what happened between Nick and his missing wife. Her fast-talking and incredibly astute performance perfectly fits the hard-hitting and anxious tone that Fincher always brings to his films. It is definitely one of the best supporting actress performances from last year, and it’s a shame that she wasn’t more widely recognized during the awards season this past winter.
With the success of Gone Girl and her role in the most recent season of Netflix’s House of Cards, Kim Dickens is in the spotlight more than ever. That spotlight is only going to get brighter this summer when The Walking Dead prequel series Fear the Walking Dead premieres on AMC. Although not much is known about the plot of the show at this point, it is known that Fear the Walking Dead takes place in the time when the zombie outbreak was in its earlier stages as compared to the apocalyptic world that is shown in The Walking Dead.
It’s no question that in the lead of a thrilling dramatic TV series Dickens will shine. Hopefully the fact that The Walking Dead is one of the most popular TV shows of all time will draw a large viewership for Fear The Walking Dead, and Kim Dickens will finally have the chance to showcase her one-of-a-kind abilities to a massive audience while in a leading role. Hopefully she gains the notoriety that she so richly deserves after all these years of being the unsung hero of so many great projects.
— Ross Hansen