A Field Guide to Claire Holt

 

The clip above is from the excellent new NBC drama "Aquarius" set in the crazed days of Los Angeles in 1967.  In it, Claire Holt is an undercover police officer named Charmain Tully, telling Charles Manson a bullshit story so that she can get closer to the family and rescue the daughter of a politician who has been lured into Manson's family.  Holt is a tough, beautiful cop who has to deal with the sexism of some of her fellow male officers who she delightfully rips down to size at times and with her partner here--played by Grey Damon--who gets high at work and might one day get too high to save her from the dangers of being a covert pig in evil Manson's world.

 

Fuck, I love this show.  It is on right before "Hannibal" so it pretty much lured me in on giving it a try right there but "Aquarius" with lead officer David Duchovny along with Hold and Grey working to free a mislead teen, well, I was hooked.

 

Holt as that pretty, tough officer of the law in that time of confusion and destruction hooked me in with her character and kept me putting the show on my TiVo and this twenty-seven year old Australian actress is a skilled chick, for sure.  She hails from Brisbane and was a sweet singer in the choir at her high school.  She initially wanted to be a medical doctor and only did commercials for the easy cash, using her blonde hair and wholesome smile to sell people on the Sizzler restaurant and the Australian theme park Dreamworld.  She graduated school in 2005 where she also played volleyball and water polo and did Tae-Kwon-Do on the side, in which she has a black belt.  I am hoping officer Tully will show us some of those martial arts skills on Manson's ass in upcoming episodes of "Aquarius".

 

Right after graduation, she scored a role on the Australian TV tween show "H2O: Just Add Water" where she played a teenage girl who was also a mermaid with water powers.  She was on the multi-award winning show for two years and left the show to star in the direct-to DVD horror release "Messengers 2: The Scarecrow".  She starred in that alongside The Walking Dead's Daryl Dixon himself--Norman Reedus and the not-so-fabulous bargain bin gem released in 2009.

 

From there, she did a short stint on the cleavage-tastic teen drama "Pretty Little Liars" and played a role in the 2011 movie "Mean Girls 2" as a particularly slutty "mean girl" and member of the evil Plastics clique ironically named Chastity   From there, Holt was cast on the CW TV drama "The Vampire Diaries".  It enjoyed the hugest, most popular launch of a series at the time and Holt appeared on five seasons of the still-running show in the role of Rebekah Mikaelson, a vampire who enjoyed a love interest with one of the show's main characters in the 1920's but love gets all lost and regained just like blood drains from the living in a show of this ilk.  Holt got to play the same role in the spin-off series "The Originals" where she gets to enjoy the rebirth of a romance that she had with someone from back in the 1800's. In 2014, Holt was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for her acting work on "The Originals". You go, undead girl!  Her NBC Hannibal cast bio leaves out her time on this show completely which strokes me as odd, considering the popularity of this show.  Oh, well, I guess it was good enough to pay the bills at the time but isn't "serious" enough to make the cut now.  Here's a fan vid of her vamp time hotness.  

 

 

In 2011, Holt starred as the romantic lead in the quirky comedy "Blue Like Jazz" opposite Marshall Allman where they play college students in Portland, Oregon where Allman is a closeted highly religious Baptist trying to find his way in a very secular environment.  The film premiered at South by Southwest and it's a fun flick if you are looking for a date night at home thing to pop into the DVD player.

 

And now, here we are with Holt as the cop Tully, a tough, strong woman cop fighting her way to do the right thing in the 1967's Los Angeles Police Department's very male-run world.  Her character is as fine a cop as any there but who gets berated and given shit assignments because of her gender.  Tully's character is determined to show all around her that she deserves all of the respect and assignments that any male cop gets and she does not want to get stuck doing the paperwork jobs that a lot of women cops of that era got stuck doing, regardless of their talents.  Be sure to check out "Aquarius" and check out Holt's performance as this tough, great cop.