Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 5, 2026
The Case of the Disappearing Actor or Actress is a popular semi-regular feature around these parts, although I always feel a little guilty writing them (except the Adrian Grenier one), because I don’t love spotlighting a lull in an actor’s career.
It’s compounded more often than not because it’s an actress who hits 40, which is apparently when Hollywood goes selectively blind until she’s old enough to play someone’s mom.
That’s not really the case here, though. Briga Heelan is only 38, and she hasn’t been around much in several years. She got her first big break when she appeared in six episodes of Cougar Town across three seasons from 2012-2015. That put her on Bill Lawrence’s radar, and being on Bill Lawrence’s radar is a very good place to be. It led to a recurring stint on Undateable and a two-season run on his criminally overlooked series Ground Floor alongside John C. McGinley — and it’s also where she met her now-husband, Rene Gube, who still does some acting (The Bear) but mostly writes now (The Bear, Going Dutch, Superstore, Brockmire).
Ground Floor was cancelled after two seasons, but that opened the door to something even bigger: a lead role in the fantastic Great News, from 30 Rock alum Tracey Wigfield. Heelan was terrific in it, though John Michael Higgins, Andrea Martin, and — yes — Nicole Richie frequently threatened to walk away with the whole thing.
Alas, that turned out to be the peak of Heelan’s career, at least so far. She landed a recurring role on Thomas Middleditch’s B Positive (whatever happened to him … oh, right. Open marriage). And in the five years since, she’s appeared as a guest star in exactly two episodes of two CBS series, So Help Me Todd and Bob Hearts Abishola.
It’s entirely possible Heelan chose to prioritize family over the grind of auditioning (she and Gube welcomed kids in 2017 and 2024), but my hunch is that her career slowdown has less to do with that — or with her age — and more to do with the near-extinction of the television sitcom. She is, at her core, a sitcom actress, and there simply aren’t enough sitcoms left to employ her. Hopefully, Bill Lawrence, who somehow has five shows in the air right now, can find a spot for her somewhere, because Heelan deserves a real showcase on a comedy that will actually be given the chance to run.
Here she is last year with her husband at the Emmys, where I assume he was invited for his work on The Bear.
