Why Aunt Jane From The Five Nights At Freddy's Movie Looks So Familiar
"Five Nights at Freddy's" brings the popular indie horror game series into live action, as a desperate man named Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) grabs his final professional straw when career counselor Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard) offers him a gig as the night guard at an abandoned family entertainment center called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Fans of the game series already know where things go from here, and even if you're unfamiliar with the basic premise, the trailers and promotional material make it clear what "Five Nights at Freddy's" is all about. Murderous animatronic mascots with a mind of their own are the name of the game, and creepy eyes are aglow in the dark.
The basic premise of the first game – which the movie seems to be based around — is fairly simple and doesn't really involve a ton of characters besides the main protagonist and the animatronics. However, a movie can't really get by with such a minuscule cast. As such, "Five Nights at Freddy's" has plenty of supporting characters, some of whom are played by pretty big names. Apart from Lillard, the most recognizable cast member is quite possibly Mary Stuart Masterson, who plays Mike's aunt, Jane. Let's take a look at some of her best-known roles over the years.
Mary Stuart Masterson played Watts in Some Kind of Wonderful
Mary Stuart Masterson made her big screen debut in 1975's "The Stepford Wives". As an adult, she started scoring major roles early on, starring in movies like 1986's crime drama "At Close Range," in which she acted opposite heavyweights like Sean Penn and Christopher Walken. However, one could argue that 1987's "Some Kind of Wonderful." was her true big breakthrough.
A classic John Hughes romantic drama that features a love triangle between Keith (Eric Stoltz), his drummer friend Watts (Masterson), and the popular Amanda (Lea Thompson), "Some Kind of Wonderful" took a while to find its final form. As Masterson told Entertainment Weekly, this very much applied to her character, who was quite different before she landed the role — up to and including their name, which ultimately went to Stoltz's character.
"The character's name was Keith, and it if was written today, you would say, 'Oh this is a trans character.'" Masterson said. "She would probably change her pronoun the way it was written originally. Her name was Keith, she wore BVDs, she was very butch and was his friend almost as a guy, not as a tomboy ... They said, 'Well, why don't we just pick a drummer and have a gender-neutral name, like a last name or something.'" Going with this logic, the character became the one we know and got her name from the Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts. As for Masterson, she not only crushed the role but took Watts' musicianship to heart and learned to play drums herself.
She was Idgie in Fried Green Tomatoes
If "Some Kind of Wonderful" wasn't enough to put the name Mary Stuart Masterson out there, 1991's "Fried Green Tomatoes" certainly put her on the map. The movie is a comedic drama that focuses on a modern-day friendship between Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) and Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), and an old-timey one between rebellious Idgie Threadgoode (Masterson) and good girl Ruth Jamison (Mary Louise Parker). It's one of the great films that celebrate female friendship — and also happens to include a bit of LGBTIQA+ subtext when it comes to Idgie and Ruth.
Idgie's arguably finest hour is the "Bee Charmer" scene, in which she impresses Ruth (Mary Louise Parker) by collecting honeycombs from a beehive with her bare hands. As it turns out, Masterson shot the scene without the aid of a stunt double. "I was just supposed to walk over and get the honeycomb and bring it back to camera," she told Southern Living (via Yahoo!). "We did what's called a series where you don't cut, you just keep rolling and you set back to one and you do it [again]. So, I did that three times, and by the third time, I was so covered in bees I couldn't even see."
Some people might swear off bees for life after an experience like that, but Masterson is cut from a different cloth. In fact, she later took up beekeeping as a hobby.
She played Joon Pearl in Benny & Joon
Mary Stuart Masterson continued her comedy-drama starring roles in 1993's "Benny & Joon," where she stars as Joon Pearl opposite Aidan Quinn (as Benny) and Johnny Depp (as Sam, an eccentric Buster Keaton-style physical comedian). In the movie, Joon lives with her brother Benny due to her mental illness, and when Sam moves in with them, shenanigans ensue.
Masterson and Depp both entered the movie with a history of playing eccentric characters, so it may be easy to think they were natural choices for their roles. However, neither were first-choice picks and only got the parts of Joon and Sam after Laura Dern and Woody Harrelson bowed out of the project. The cast changes certainly didn't hurt the movie's sleeper-hit success, though — and Masterson wasn't shy to point this out.
"It's stupid that people think of movies like 'Benny & Joon' as surprising when they do well," she told Entertainment Weekly. "They are basic stories about the most fundamental human needs. And the fact that those are considered risks, and the 'RoboCop' movies mitigate those risks — well, it's backward. Movies like 'Benny & Joon' are universal."
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
She wreaked Wild West havoc in Bad Girls
Like "Fried Green Tomatoes," the 1994 Western "Bad Girls" features a quartet of neat female characters who take charge of their own fate, with Mary Stuart Masterson in the middle of the action. Here, four sex workers with tragic backstories — Cody Zamora (Madeleine Stowe), Anita Crown (Masterson), Eileen Spenser (Andie McDowell), and Lily Laronette (Drew Barrymore) – become outlaws after killing an unsavory customer and end up on a collision course with the Pinkerton detective agency, as well as hard-boiled criminals Kid (James Russo) and Frank Jarrett (Robert Loggia).
Unlike "Fried Green Tomatoes," however, "Bad Girls" was no success story. Despite Roger Ebert praising the idea of a female-lead Western, the end result was lambasted by him and other critics alike. As such, the film may have had plenty of potential, but ultimately went down in history as one of Masterson's least-beloved projects. Still, it's hard to imagine that the experience of filming a Western with people like Stowe, McDowell, and Barrymore wasn't an experience worth having.
She joined Law & Order: SVU as Dr. Rebecca Hendrix
In 2004, Mary Stuart Masterson joined the NBC crime drama "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" in a recurring role as Dr. Rebecca Hendrix, Olivia Benson's (Mariska Hargitay) old police academy classmate. Unlike Benson, Hendrix ended up choosing a different career path and carved herself a new career as a psychiatrist. In Season 6, Episode 9 — "Weak" — Benson and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) seek out Hendrix to ask for her help in catching a particularly nasty criminal — and after some initial reluctance due to professional concerns, the psychiatrist's old cop instincts soon kick in.
Masterson's character appears in three Season 6 episodes and returns in the following two seasons for an episode each. While she's hardly the show's most prominent character, fans have remembered her fondly on Reddit. "Her character added so much to the show," u/the_scientist52 wrote. "I wish there were more episodes with her in it!"
Masterson has appeared on many major TV shows
Mary Stuart Masterson may be best known for her major movie roles, but she's also appeared on several well-known TV shows over the years. The award-winning actor may not have guest star roles by the dozen in her résumé, but she definitely makes an impact wherever she turns up.
Apart from the aforementioned "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Masterson's arguably biggest TV role is her 11-episode tenure as FBI director Eleanor Hirst in NBC crime drama "Blindspot" from 2017 to 2019. Between the two small-screen roles, she's also made several appearances in other beloved shows. In 2013, she visited "The Good Wife," playing Rachel Keyser in Season 5, Episode 9 — "Whack-A-Mole." In 2015, it was time for some "Blue Bloods." She appears in Season 6, Episode 2 of the CBS cop drama, portraying City Council member Katherine Tucker. She also spent three episodes on "NCIS," once again playing an authority figure — this time, Congressman Jenna Flemming, who debuts in Season 14, Episode 9 — "Pay to Play."
These shows, of course, are just a quick glimpse at Masterson's TV career over the years. She's also appeared in projects that range from the short-lived 2020 legal drama "For Life" to the classic kids' show "Blue's Clues." In 1992, she even hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live."