Why Sarah Nguyen From Yellowstone Looks So Familiar

Paramount's western drama "Yellowstone" centers on a ranching family in Montana who's trying to keep a hold of their land. As they fight against land developers and an Indian reservation to maintain ownership of their property, the Dutton family's world is further turned upside down after journalist Sarah Nguyen enters their lives. Though she only appeared in a handful of episodes, Nguyen's surprising death at the hands of one of the Dutton family members led to a whole new mess for the rest of the family to clean up. And with Season 4 of "Yellowstone" premiering soon, there are plenty of opportunities for her death to come back up.

The actress who portrayed Sarah Nguyen has been acting since the early 2000s, and you'll likely recognize her from a famous crime procedural dramedy which she starred in for the majority of her career. Let's take a look at some of her biggest roles so far.

Michaela Conlin landed her breakout role in 2005 as Angela Montenegro on "Bones." As the best friend and coworker of Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), Montenegro is a specialist in forensic facial reconstruction who eventually goes on to marry her other coworker Dr. Jack Hodgins (T. J. Thyne). Conlin was on "Bones" for its entirety, and earned an Asian Excellence Award nomination for Supporting Television actress for her role (via Iceland Review).

In an interview with The Morning Call, Conlin described what she loved about playing Montenegro for all those years. "Usually as an actor you're asked to do one thing," she said. "You come in and you're the girlfriend or the ex-wife or the bitchy co-worker. But I've been able to explore a lot of sides of Angela. She's a [crime-solver], a mom, a wife, a best friend. There's a million things I get to do." And even though "Bones" ended a few years ago, it's still considered one of the best crime procedural shows of all time, with great female characters to boot.

Before she was cast on "Bones," Conlin had several small roles in movies and even a couple TV shows that quickly fizzled out. She made an appearance as Adrien Brody's overnight date in the crime drama "Love the Hard Way," as well as Detective Sobel in "The Lincoln Lawyer" starring Matthew McConaughey.

Two of Conlin's first TV roles were on ABC dramas "MDs" and "The D.A." — both of which unfortunately didn't make it past their first seasons. She described her experience trying to land a lasting job to The Morning Call, saying "Pilot season in L.A. is just this blood bath. They make so many pilots and such a small percentage are picked up. And then if you are picked up, there are so many variables. You have to get a good time slot, and you have to get promoted. And then you have to thrive in that time slot." Eventually she landed an audition for a show called "Brennan," which was later renamed "Bones" — and the rest is history.

One of Conlin's most recent projects was in comedian Eric Andre's prank movie "Bad Trip." She plays love interest Maria Li, who Andre's character Chris Carey has secretly had a crush on since high school. At one point in the movie, Li kindly invites Carey to her art gallery in New York, which spawns his great idea to embark on a roadtrip with his friend Bud Malone (Lil Rel Howery). The inventive comedy is a narrative story fueled by real pranks, and hilariously features real reactions from unwitting strangers.

The heavily improvised movie was far out of Conlin's comfort zone. In an interview with Observer, she spoke fondly of her time on set, saying: "The process of doing it was so fun, and so different from anything I've ever done. There's only four actors cast in the movie and the rest of the movie is real people, so we were given very loose situational scenes to do and put in these real situations with people and basically improvised the scenes. They're such a smart, great group of people to work with, so it was really thrilling and fun."

If you haven't seen it yet, "Bad Trip" is currently on Netflix for all to enjoy. Conlin even has a few scenes she recommends keeping an eye out for: "The scene with the priest, I'll just say was a real don't miss. The zoo, I would say that they shouldn't probably miss. [...] There's a lot going on. Just watch the whole thing" (via Netflix Life).