Why Georgia From Ginny & Georgia Looks So Familiar

"Ginny & Georgia," which premiered on Netflix on February 24, 2021, follows the two titular characters as they navigate their mother-daughter relationship and move to a new town. Fifteen-year-old Ginny (Antonia Gentry) frequently feels more mature than her 30-year-old mother Georgia (Brianne Howey) and seeks to understand her mother's fraught past.

Given its subject matter, the series has naturally garnered many comparisons to "Gilmore Girls," the widely beloved and often still talked-about, feel-good show that originally aired in the early 2000s. They're both set in a small New England town and feature a close relationship between a very young mother and her teenage daughter; said daughter goes to a prestigious school; and said mother wants to distance herself from her past. "Ginny & Georgia" seems to be self-aware of this, and even references the similarities between it and "Gilmore Girls" in its trailer when Georgia says, "We're like the Gilmore girls, but with bigger boobs!"

Speaking of the character of Georgia, you may be thinking that she looks super familiar. This makes sense: Brianne Howey, who plays Georgia in "Ginny & Georgia," has been acting since 2008. Here's what you may have seen her in.

Brianne Howey's first credited role was as Jess Ramsey in the 2008 short film "Suckerpunch," which she followed up with two more short film roles and short stints on shows like "90210," "NCIS," "Baby Daddy," "Twisted Tales," "Criminal Minds," "The Middle," and "Revenge."

2013 marked Howey's first time playing the same character for more than just a few episodes. That year, Howey appeared in a short show called "Red Scare," which can be watched in full on YouTube. The series consists of just one season of eight episodes, each clocking in at about eight minutes, so it's a very quick binge-watch. Set in 1956, "Red Scare" follows 10 strangers who are forced to lock themselves in a fallout shelter during an air raid. While stuck together, the group — including Howey's teenager character Audrey Stone — discovers that one of them is secretly a vampire, and they must figure out which one of them is the bloodsucker. "Red Scare" is undeniably on the more obscure side, but it's not impossible to find in the midst of getting stuck in a YouTube rabbit hole.

A few years later, in 2019, Howey popped up in another vampire-centric show: Fox's "The Passage," co-starring "Saved by the Bell" alum Mark-Paul Gosselaar. The series depicts a U.S. government experiment gone wrong, in which a group of death-row inmates are turned into infectious vampires. Howey plays one of the inmates, a woman named Shauna Babcock. Unfortunately, "The Passage" garnered mediocre reviews and ratings, and thus was canceled after one season.

Throughout the first season of Fox's supernatural horror series "The Exorcist," Brianne Howey captivated audiences as Katherine "Kat" Rance, an ex-ballet dancer whose life forever changed when she and her girlfriend Julia were in a car accident that resulted in Julia's death. The series, a direct sequel to the original "Exorcist" movie from 1973, follows two priests, Father Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera) and Father Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels), who work as exorcists and look into cases of demonic possession. Father Tomas and Father Marcus meet Kat and her family — her father Henry (Alan Ruck), mother Angela (Geena Davis), and sister Casey (Hannah Kasulka) — after strange occurrences in their house lead them to believe a demon or other presence may be residing there with them. Howey's character doesn't appear in Season 2, which tackles new terrors.

Not everyone was thrilled with the way Kat as a character was depicted — particularly in regards to how her sexuality is established in tandem with the show's central theme of demonic possession — but "The Exorcist" was well-liked by both professional critics and everyday audiences. Season 1 earned a 79% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Season 2 scoring a perfect 100% rating on the aggregator — its critical consensus stating, "'The Exorcist' continues to haunt in a more confident second season, with an assured storyline and mastery over its demonic flourishes."

Sadly, despite strong reviews, Fox pulled the plug on "The Exorcist" after just two seasons, as reported by Deadline in May 2018.

The same year Brianne Howey appeared in "The Passage," she also made her superhero show debut in the CW's "Batwoman," which premiered in October 2019 with Ruby Rose as the lead character. (Rose left "Batwoman" after Season 1, and Javicia Leslie took over for Season 2 as Ryan Wilder, the new vigilante donning the Batwoman name.) "Batwoman" follows Kate Kane (Rose), an out lesbian and trained street fighter who uses her passion for social justice to take care of Gotham City as Batwoman in her cousin Batman's absence. When Kate goes missing after her plane crashes, Ryan Wilder, a skilled fighter currently living out of her van, takes over the role of Batwoman after finding the Batsuit in the wreck of the crash.

In "Batwoman," Howey plays Reagan, a bartender who first makes an appearance in the fourth episode of Season 1. Reagan becomes romantically involved with Kate, leading to some complications in Kate's efforts to catch the jewel thief called Magpie (Rachel Matthews). Howey's role in "Batwoman," while notable, is fairly sparse; she appears in just four episodes so far throughout the series' two seasons.

Another one of Brianne Howey's most recent credits is in "Dollface," the Hulu series starring Kat Dennings that premiered in November 2019. In the Jordan Weiss-created comedy, Dennings plays Jules Wiley, a woman who ventures to change her life after her long-term boyfriend Jeremy (Connor Hines) dumps her — setting out to mend the female friendships she let fade away while she was in a relationship. "Dollface" co-stars Brenda Song, Shay Mitchell, and Esther Povitsky as three of Jules' most important friends: Madison Maxwell, Stella Cole, and Izzy Levine.

Howey had a recurring role in "Dollface" as a co-worker of Jules' at the wellness company Woöm. She plays Alison B. (not to be confused with the other Alison who works at Woöm, Alison S., played by Vella Lovell) and appears in six of the ten episodes of the first season. 

Though "Dollface" received mixed reviews — Season 1 has a 56% Tomatometer rating and a 73% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes — Hulu picked it up for a second season in January 2020 (via Deadline). However, the show was ultimately canceled before fans could enjoy a third season.