Where You've Seen Banana Split's April Before

For those keeping track, Netflix's ongoing Top Ten rankings continue to be a fascinating look into the streaming habits of the country at large. For a certain set of viewers, it's also a great way to discover flicks you might never have heard of, or at least maybe wouldn't have otherwise taken a chance on. 

The latest unexpected entry into the vaunted Netflix Top Ten is a clever, seriously funny little teen rom-com by the name of Banana Split. The film follows a precocious high schooler named April who, after being broken up with by her longtime beau Nick (Dylan Sprouse) the summer before college, finds herself unexpectedly making friends with Nick's new girlfriend Clara (Liana Liberato). Yes, it's safe to assume matters get a little complicated for the three after that fateful twist — particularly as it spins them all into a love triangle unlike anything seen on screen in recent memory.

That last bit isn't an overstatement, by the way, as even most critics agree that Banana Split has a lot more going on under the hood than most dewy, teen-angsty romantic comedies. They also agree that the film's stars bring a lot to the mix, with the actor portraying April (who's also the film's co-writer) getting heaps of praise for her work in particular. We're betting many of you will recognize Banana Split's young star, because she's been making some serious noise in Hollywood since the early 2000s. Her name is Hannah Marks, and you'd do well to learn that name now, because she's going to be a major player in front of and behind the camera for years to come.

Here's where you've seen April from Banana Split before.

Not to burst the bubble of those who think Hannah Marks is a teen star primed for a breakout on the strength of Banana Split, but she's not a teen at all. The actor is actually in her late 20s, and is playing very young in the 2018 film, primarily because she also co-wrote the Banana Split script with herself in mind as the lead. But even if the former child star can still play a teen, she's already transitioned into a relatively successful adult career; which means many of you might recognize her from more adult-centric fare.

If that's the case, Hanna Marks will certainly look more than a little bit familiar to fans of FX's brilliantly left-of-center, decidedly adult-themed romantic comedy series You're the Worst. Set in modern day Los Angeles, You're the Worst followed the tumultuous romance between Gretchen (Aya Cash) and Jimmy (Chris Geere), two absurdly self-centered, self-destructive, and marvelously flawed Angelinos who fall unexpectedly in love and try to make their relationship work against all odds. 

Over the course of the show's run on FX, the odds were frequently stacked against them. That was especially true during the series' near flawless final season, which found the lead duo barreling towards a wedding day disaster. Hannah Marks was part of that seeming disaster, entering the fray as the sardonic florist Jimmy hires for the wedding, before having a sort of "accidental, but not entirely accidental" tryst with. Marks would go on to appear as Mariah in two more episodes of You're the Worst's final season, including the series' immaculate finale. While she didn't have a ton of screen time, she still made a stark impression as the anti-romantic foil to Jimmy and Gretchen's less than idyllic relationship.  

You're the Worst is hardly Hannah Marks' first memorable small screen turn. One look at her IMDb page will tell you she's kept herself more than busy over the course of her career, appearing in dozens of impressive TV series to date (Weeds, Necessary Roughness, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency among them). Marks' turn on Dirk Gently in particular proved fortuitous for the young actor, as it saw her starring alongside another former child star in Elijah Wood. Seems Wood enjoyed working with Marks so much, he helped bolster her big screen career by offering her a key role in a movie he was producing through his Spectrevision production shingle.

That role would turn out to be one of Hannah Marks' most memorable big screen efforts to date, and came in one of 2019's most disturbing genre efforts, Adam Egypt Mortimer's Daniel Isn't Real. If you've yet to dive into the pitch-black world of Daniel Isn't Real, the film follows the tragic tale of Luke (Miles Robbins), a troubled, traumatized college kid whose freshman year goes wildly off the rails after the re-emergence of his charismatic childhood friend Daniel (Patrick Schwarzenegger), who also happens to be a violent sociopath-slash-demon with eyes on taking Luke over mind and body.

Demonic entity aside, Daniel proves to have quite the way with the ladies, and eventually talks Hannah Marks' unsuspecting undergrad Sophie into a rowdy night on the town. Without spoiling too much, we'll just say matters get a little sexy and a lot creepy when Sophie is around. Unfortunately, Hannah Marks again doesn't have a ton of screen time in Daniel Isn't Real. But she still brings the heat to her time with both Daniel and Luke, and nearly steals the show late in the action via one of the film's funniest scenes.

By the time Hannah Marks scored her role in Daniel Isn't Real, she'd already played the genre game a few times before. Her first movie role actually came in a twisted 2005 horror flick by the name of Doll Graveyard. That film found a then 12-year-old Marks playing a tragically departed youngster whose vengeful spirit possesses some dolls to wreak havoc in the real world. 

Doll Graveyard was not exactly Oscar-worthy material, but even at a young age (and in a small role), Marks proved she could carry some serious dramatic weight. She got another chance at genre madness a few years later when she scored a supporting role in the 2015 horror anthology film Southbound. Comprised of five short films directed by the likes of David Bruckner (Netflix's The Ritual), Patrick Horvath (The Signal), and the team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Chad Villela (Ready or Not), Southbound follows the tales of several travelers who confront all manner of evil beings along an isolated stretch of desert highway.

The second segment of Southbound, "Siren," was directed by Roxanne Benjamin (Body at Brighton Rock), and finds an all girl rock group called the White Tights taking the scenic route to their next gig. Along the way, their tour van gets a flat, and they end up accepting help from an enigmatic couple with some seriously evil plans in store. Hannah Marks plays one of the White Tights, of course, alongside Nathalie Love and Fabianne Therese. And while much of the action is centered around Therese's Sadie, there's little question that Hannah Marks wholly outshines her fictional bandmates in a performance that makes a three-dimensional character out of one that could have easily been left flat.