Laurel Holloman

Laurel Holloman is an actress primarily known for playing Justine on nine episodes of Angel and for playing Tina on Showtime's The L Word. She has a breezy North Carolina charm that I thought worth pointing out. I see no reason why a blog dedicated to short appreciations of poetry and popular culture should exclude short appreciations of actresses, especially sleeper television actresses.

Holloman has crows' feet around her eyes and laugh lines around her mouth. The platitude that lines give a face character is actually true. Pretty 18 year-old girls -- as anyone who has ever hunted for porn on the internet can attest -- are all pretty in exactly the same way. Holloman has a specific beauty based in what appears to be a tremendous emotional intelligence. She has lines on her face because she has not attempted to avoid or erase evidence of emotional intensity. She is the ideal middle point between a real person who happens to be on television and someone grown in a studio-lab for maximum appeal. On Angel she was cast because her pain at the loss of her sister was instantly believable. On the L Word she has a friendly, searching sensitivity -- the kind of sensitivity that reaches for something rather than one that simply responds to something that has crossed its path. I find her genuinely touching.