Michelle Pfeiffer plays Ruth Madoff in The Wizard of Lies, the upcoming HBO movie about Bernie (Robert De Niro). She’s also got two other credits on her IMDb page, including an adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express — but before that, she hadn’t done anything since 2013, and in fact her acting has been only sporadic since 2003.

Whatever prompted her return to the screen, I’m happy about it, which I realized thanks to a confluence of things: seeing her face at this premiere, and liking her in that very serious suit; remembering a recent conversation in which my mother and I defended One Fine Day as a rom-com even though I haven’t seen the whole thing, solely because Michelle and Intern George are hot and look beautiful together; and c) a period in November when Up Close and Personal was running a lot on cable and I couldn’t turn it off, and suddenly there’s Michelle and Redford and Celine Dion starts singing and out come the FEELINGS. Now that Michelle is back out in the world, I can’t fathom why she ever wasn’t part of it. Like, why wasn’t she in Big Little Lies? Not that anyone in that needed replacing, but it feels like a project she should have been part of all along (quite apart from her husband David E. Kelley adapting it). How can we get more of Michelle Pfeiffer? What movie should she be in, or what TV show should she guest on until she’s the star of her own limited-run premium cable or streaming drama? I can see it now: Netflix decides to make a gritty Grease 2 Too, all about how she and Maxwell Caulfield worked it out — or didn’t — after her cool rider zipped them off into the sunset. Adrian Zmed can reprise his role, but only if he mixes it up with his Passions stint as a disembodied head wearing a tricorn hat. SOLD. Reboots are all the rage right now, after all.

[Photo: Getty]