Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” is a massive, sprawling drama filled with tons of memorable characters — but right now, I want us to turn

our attention to Summer Higgins, a recurring player during the show’s fourth and fifth seasons, played by industry veteran Piper Perabo.

Summer is an environmentalist who finds herself in the vicinity of the sprawling Dutton family ranch when she attends a protest and

 

 

meets John Dutton III (Kevin Costner). Not only does John take an interest in Summer, but he even opens his home to her, despite their obvious differences … and even though Summer runs afoul of John’s only Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) immediately, she and John enjoy a decently long romantic connection.

If you watched Perabo on “Yellowstone” and were trying to figure out where the heck you’ve seen her before, fret not; I’ve got you covered. As it happens, Perabo is a veteran of both the big and small screen, and she’s been in everything from Christopher Nolan movies to cult classics to USA Network originals (where, as you might remember, characters are welcome). Here’s why Piper Perabo, who spent some time on “Yellowstone,” looks so familiar.

Based on a very real bar called the Coyote Ugly Saloon where the bartenders dance on the bar — the first location of which is in New York City — the 2000 film “Coyote Ugly,” directed by David McNally and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, gave us an inside look at a fictional version of this establishment’s staff, and I promise you can enjoy it even if you can’t stop thinking about just how unsanitary it would actually be for bartenders to keep putting their shoes on the bar top. Piper Perabo, the woman of the hour, plays the movie’s lead Violet Sanford, who escapes her sleepy small town of South Amboy, New Jersey and runs away 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 just how much money the beautiful bartenders make at Coyote Ugly, she tries to find employment there herself.

Lil (Maria Bello), the bar’s proprietor, and after two botched auditions — including one that results in a $250 fine for the bar after Violet turns an emergency hose on a fire marshal — Violet performs a Blondie song and snags the job. Is “Coyote Ugly” great cinema? No, not really. Is it one of the most deeply enjoyable and delightfully cheesy movies 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 a departing Coyote Ugly employee), “Coyote Ugly” is a dang good time, and it set Perabo up for success.

Remember the USA Network? I sure do. Home to popular shows like “Burn Notice” and “Psych,” this also happens to be where Piper Perabo found a home on the small screen after following up “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 trainee at the CIA who suddenly finds herself at the level of a field operative; even though she doesn’t have a ton of experience, she makes up for that with the fact that she’s a surprisingly good spy (and, more to the point, speaks 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 very 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 chance to prove that she could capably lead a TV series to boot. Plus, besides Perabo and Gorham, the show brought on a bunch of really great actors in recurring and guest roles, including Peter Gallagher, Anne Dudek, Eion Bailey, and Sarah Clarke, just to name a few. So what did Perabo do on the big screen?

The same year as “Coyote Ugly,” Perabo was way funnier than she had any right to be in the overly-hated “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” but if you totally forgot that Piper Perabo was in “The Prestige,” I’ll forgive you, and I’d be willing to bet she would too. The cast of Christopher Nolan’s slightly underrated magic drama is incredibly stacked and includes Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis, Rebecca Hall, and David freakin’ Bowie, the last of whom plays real-life inventor Nikola Tesla. Still, Perabo is quite good as Julia McCullough, the assistant of older magic-maker Milton the Magician (Ricky Jay), who himself serves as a sort of 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 that Julia’s drowning onstage during an act drives an immediate wedge between Borden and Angier after the latter blames the former for a bad knot.

Elsewhere, you can see Perabo in “Looper,” the 2012 Rian Johnson movie led by Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In that movie, Perabo plays sex worker and dancer Suzie, who’s desperate to provide for her child and ends up becoming a sort of companion to both forms of the movie’s hero Joe (played during different timelines by both Willis and Gordon-Levitt). Aside from that, if you’re a fan of network dramas, you might be aware 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.