Robin’s training paid off in 1987 when she landed a small part in Frog, a whimsical made-for-TV movie starring Shelley Duvall and Elliott Gould. Robin’s strong performance led to subsequent roles in the movie’s substandard sequel Frogs! (1991), as well as in the popular shows But He Loves Me, Life Goes On and Perry Mason.
After becoming a familiar face on the tube, Robin made the jump to the big screen in 1992 with Encino Man, a film about two high-school outcasts who discover a frozen caveman in their backyard.
Although Robin’s career was progressing nicely by this point, her natural excitability still got the best of her from time to time, like in 1993 when she was flown to New York and asked to audition for Tony Richardson’s drama Blue Sky. "I started crying and hyperventilating; the guy had to get me out of the room," she recalls. "But it was the best thing that ever happened to me. If I'd gotten the part on one of my first auditions, with the first director I'd ever met, I would have thought it was that easy."
Luckily, Robin returned to the silver screen again in 1995 in Empire Records, a rocking teen film about the misfit employees of an independent record store, starring Liv Tyler. Records was followed by a starring role in The Craft (1996), a risqué horror film costarring fellow up-and-comers Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell. To the surprise of many, the movie became the top-grossing film at the box office on its opening weekend, transforming Robin into an instant star. “I'm really proud to have been in The Craft,” she says in retrospect. “I will always be that chick from The Craft, no matter what I do.”
With her star status now secure, Robin decided to test the indie waters with Niagara, Niagara (1997), a challenging film in which she played an outsider plagued with Tourette's syndrome. In addition to netting her a Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival, the role also allowed Robin to get closer to director Bob Gosse, whom she married later that year.
Robin spent the next five years of her career alternating between quirky independent films like Julian Po (1997) and major blockbusters like End of Days (1999) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Vertical Limit (2000) starring Chris O’Donnell. Sadly, it was during this time that her relationship with Gosse began to deteriorate and the couple called it quits in 2002.
Although her relationship with Gosse may have ended, Robin’s career continued to pick up steam thanks to roles in The In-Laws (2003), a hilarious comedy costarring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, and the serial-killer thriller The Zodiac (2005). While The Zodiac may have given her the chance to work with wunderkind Rory Culkin, Robin is the first to admit that, “My friends that are snobs think it’s cool I did a movie with Albert Brooks.”
2006 was a particularly busy year for Robin. She lit up the small screen eary in the year as lawyer Veronica Donovan on Fox’s hit series Prison Break. She was also equally radiant on the big screen in Open Window, The Darwin Awards and Hollywoodland, starring Academy Award-winners Adrien Brody and Ben Affleck.
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