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Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Yellowstone’ is a huge, sprawling drama filled with tons of memorable characters — but for now, I want us to turn our attention to Summer Higgins, a recurring cast member during the show’s fourth and fifth seasons, played by industry veteran Piper Perabo. Summer is an environmentalist who finds herself near the sprawling Dutton family ranch when she attends a protest and meets John Dutton III (Kevin Costner). Not only is John interested in Summer, but he even opens his home to her, despite their obvious differences…and even though Summer immediately clashes with John’s only Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly), she and John have a decently long romantic relationship.
If you watched Perabo on “Yellowstone” and were trying to figure out where the hell you’ve seen her before, don’t worry; I’m here for you. As it turns out, Perabo is a veteran of the big and small screen, and she’s starred in everything from Christopher Nolan films to cult classics to USA Network originals (where, as you may recall, the characters are welcome). Here’s why Piper Perabo, who spent time on “Yellowstone,” looks so familiar.
Piper Perabo made her debut in Coyote Ugly
Based on a real-life bar called Coyote Ugly Saloon where bartenders dance on the bar – the first location of which is in New York – the 2000 film “Coyote Ugly”, directed by David McNally and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, gave us a glimpse of a fictionalized version of the staff of this establishment, and I promise you will be able to enjoy it even if you can’t stop thinking about how unsanitary it would be for the bartenders to continue to put their shoes on top of the bar. Woman of the Moment Piper Perabo plays Violet Sanford, the film’s main character, who escapes her sleepy small town of South Amboy, New Jersey, and flees to the city with big dreams of becoming a singer-songwriter in the big city; before she can achieve that, she needs a job, and when she sees how much money the handsome bartenders make at Coyote Ugly, she tries to find a job there herself.
Lil (Maria Bello), the bar’s owner, and after two botched auditions – including one that results in the bar being fined $250 after Violet turns an emergency hose on a fire marshal – Violet performs a Blondie song and gets the job. Is “Coyote Ugly” great cinema? No, not really. Is this one of the most enjoyable and delightfully cheesy films in recent memory? That would be a resounding yes. With a supporting cast that also includes John Goodman, Melanie Lynskey, Bridget Moynahan and Tyra Banks (the latter of whom plays an outgoing Coyote Ugly employee), “Coyote Ugly” is a very good time, and it has set Perabo up for success.
On the small screen, Piper Perabo directed Covert Affairs before Yellowstone
Do you remember the USA network? Of course. Home to popular shows like “Burn Notice” and “Psych,” it’s also where Piper Perabo found her place on the small screen after following “Coyote Ugly” with roles in “Cheaper by the Dozen” (and its sequel) as well as appearances on “House” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” In “Covert Affairs,” Perabo plays Annie Walker, a CIA intern who suddenly finds herself at the level of field agent; while she doesn’t have much experience, she makes up for it by being a surprisingly good spy (and, more to the point, speaking seven languages, the precise skill that earns her this surprising promotion). To help her navigate this new level of responsibility, Annie is assigned a handler, August “Auggie” Anderson (Christopher Gorham), a blind and highly experienced agent who helps guide her through her various missions.
“Covert Affairs” certainly wasn’t a masterpiece, but it’s definitely fun, and it gave Perabo the opportunity to prove she could effectively lead a TV series. Additionally, besides Perabo and Gorham, the series has brought in a group of very big actors in recurring and guest roles, including Peter Gallagher, Anne Dudek, Eion Bailey and Sarah Clarke, to name a few. So what has Perabo done on the big screen?
Throughout her career, Piper Perabo has appeared in films like The Prestige and Looper.
The same year as “Coyote Ugly,” Perabo was way funnier than she had any right to be in the much-hated “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” but if you totally forgot that Piper Perabo was in “The Prestige,” I forgive you, and I’d be willing to bet she would too. The cast of Christopher Nolan’s slightly underrated magical drama is incredibly stacked and includes Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis, Rebecca Hall and David, fucking Bowiethe last of which embodies the real inventor Nikola Tesla. Still, Perabo is quite good as Julia McCullough, the assistant to the older magician Milton the Magician (Ricky Jay), who himself serves as a mentor to the film’s central magicians, Robert “The Great Danton” Angier (Jackman) and Alfred “The Professor” Borden (Bale). Julia is also Angier’s beloved wife, but the other reason you might forget she’s in “The Prestige” is because Julia drowned on stage during one act. creates an immediate rift between Borden and Angier after the latter accuses the former of a bad knot.
Elsewhere, you can see Perabo in “Looper,” Rian Johnson’s 2012 film directed by Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In this film, Perabo plays sex worker and dancer Suzie, who is desperate to provide for her child and ends up becoming a sort of companion to both forms of the film’s hero Joe (played at different times by Willis and Gordon-Levitt). Aside from that, if you’re a fan of TV drama series, you may know that Perabo just joined one of the longest-running TV medical shows of all time for a pretty major guest arc in its 21st season.
Recently, Piper Perabo had a huge guest role on Grey’s Anatomy.
Anyone who has watched “Grey’s Anatomy” since its premiere in 2005 (me) knows that each season must feature a giant, terrifying and often overwrought event that threatens the lives of the doctors and patients at its fictional Seattle Central Hospital (and sometimes these doctors die in really stupid ways because of these very specific disasters). In the 21st season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” airing between 2024 and 2025, Piper Perabo plays Jenna Gatlin, a woman whose daughter, Dylan (Sophia Kopera), falls from a tree and breaks her arm, only for doctors at Gray Sloan Memorial to discover that she has a cavernous angioma in her brain.
Although Dylan’s operation – performed by Caterina Scorsone’s Dr. Amelia Shepherd – goes well, she struggles to recover, alarming Jenna; not wanting to wait to see if Dylan gets better, Jenna brings a tank of gas at the hospital and threatens to blow up Amelia and resident Dr. Simone Griffith (Alexis Floyd) if they don’t perform a second surgery. They do so and Dylan survives, but naturally, Jenna is arrested as soon as the procedure is over.
“It was so funny when they called…I’m in a mean, powerful woman streak,” Perabo said. TV Insider after the season 21 finale aired. Although she joked, at the time, that it was possible for Jenna to return, she has not returned for season 22 as of this writing — so if you want to watch Perabo on “Yellowstone” instead, it’s streaming on Paramount+ now.
