Career
Williams began her career on television, with a second-season role in an episode of the CBS series Beauty and the Beast and as the first victim of the Hillside Stranglers in NBC's made-for television film The Case of the Hillside Stranglers. Her first feature film appearances were in Zapped Again! (1990) and There Goes My Baby (1994) opposite ER's Noah Wyle. She also appeared in The Young Riders in 1991. Also in 1994, she played Jennifer Stolpa in the television movie Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story. She guest starred on the hit Fox teen drama Party of Five in its first season in 1994 as a woman named Annie Alcott. She also guest starred in the second season Law & Order episode "Sisters Of Mercy" as a sexually abused meth addict in 1992.
Beginning with Episode 11 titled "Moon Cross" (aired on February 5, 1995) of the science fiction series Earth 2, Williams appeared in a multiple episode story arc in the role of Mary, a human orphan raised on another planet by the indigenous alien species known as the Terrians.
She appeared in 1996 in the 19th episode of the fourth and final season of the TV series Picket Fences as an Amish woman who was raped.
In 1997, she took her most prominent role as Lindsay Dole Donnell on the ABC legal drama The Practice. She appeared in the series The Lyon's Den and Hack, as well as two episodes of Scrubs. Williams appeared as Dr. Natalie Durant on the NBC television show Medical Investigation which began in the fall of 2004 and ran for 20 episodes before being cancelled. Also in 2004, she starred in the television movie A Boyfriend for Christmas.
In 2000, Williams starred in the TV Movie Flowers for Algernon, based on the novel/short story by Daniel Keyes.
In May 2007, she portrayed Holly Lauren/Kathleen Shaw in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent sixth season finale episode, "Renewal"; as a neighbor and later girlfriend to Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth), her character dies towards the end of the episode. In August 2008, Williams was cast in a lead role as psychologist Dr. Gillian Foster in the Fox series Lie to Me, which ran for three seasons and ended in 2011.
In April 2011, she was cast in a guest role as Shelley Chamberlain, a grieving mother on a killing spree in the CBS series Criminal Minds.
In October 2011, she was cast in a guest role as a kidnapped child's mother called Elizabeth Flint in the CBS series The Mentalist.
Read more about this topic: Kelli Williams
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)