In 1983, Tilly had small roles and had a recurring guest role on
Hill Street Blues as Gina Srignoli, a mobster's widow who becomes romantically involved with detective Henry Goldblume. She played
Frasier Crane's seductive-but-ditzy date Candi Pearson on an episode of the fourth season of
Cheers and appeared as a similar character on the eleventh season of
Frasier. She appeared as Garry's girlfriend on ''
It's Garry Shandling's Show, which was broadcast on Showtime. She was also cast as a high-end prostitute on the short-lived comedy Key West, alongside Fisher Stevens. In 1989, she had a prominent role in the comedy Let It Ride'', starring
Richard Dreyfuss. Tilly's breakthrough film role was as a waitress in
The Fabulous Baker Boys, a role that was written specially for her by
Steve Kloves. She was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Olive Neal, a hopelessly bad actress in
Woody Allen's 1994 comedy
Bullets Over Broadway but she lost to her co-star
Dianne Wiest. In 1994, she also had a small role in
The Getaway with
Alec Baldwin and
Kim Basinger. Tilly starred in
Bound (1996), directed by
the Wachowskis, which portrays a lesbian relationship her character has with alluring ex-con Corky, played by
Gina Gershon. She played Samantha Cole in the
Jim Carrey comedy
Liar Liar (1997). In
Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000), she played a stripper and part-time
dominatrix. She portrayed gossip columnist
Louella Parsons in the
Peter Bogdanovich historical drama ''
The Cat's Meow'' (2001). She gained additional popularity around that time for her portrayal of serial killer
Tiffany Valentine in several of the ''
Child's Play horror movie series. The character was first introduced in the fourth installment of the franchise, Bride of Chucky (1998), and subsequently appeared in Seed of Chucky (2004), Curse of Chucky (2013), Cult of Chucky (2017), and the television series Chucky (2021-2024). In Seed of Chucky
and the second season of Chucky
, she plays a dual role, providing the voice for Tiffany and also playing an exaggerated version of herself. The performance earned her nominations for the Fangoria'' Chainsaw Award for Best Actress and the
MTV Movie Award for Best Scared-As-Shit Performance. She reprises the role in every subsequent appearance. In 2001, she starred as Crystal Allen in the Broadway revival of
The Women. In 2002 she played Fanny Minafer in the
made-for-TV remake of
Orson Welles'
The Magnificent Ambersons. She is a semi-regular cast member on
Family Guy, voicing the Griffin family's neighbor,
Bonnie Swanson. She has also done voice-over work for the films
Monsters, Inc.,
Stuart Little and
Home on the Range, as well as the children's series
Hey Arnold! In
Disney's The Haunted Mansion, she portrays Madame Leota (a head in a crystal ball). She has been active in the theatre, winning a
Theater World Award for her performance in the off-Broadway play
One Shoe Off. She had a starring role on the sitcom
Out of Practice, which starred
Henry Winkler and
Stockard Channing. The series was cancelled in May 2006. About this time, Tilly started dividing her time between her film career and professional poker. By the end of 2008, she returned to her film and television career. In 2009, Tilly made her Chinese film debut in the Christina Yao film
Empire of Silver playing Mrs. Landdeck. In 2012, she returned to Broadway in ''
Don't Dress for Dinner, garnering an Audience Choice Award nomination for her portrayal of mistress Suzanne. In 2013, she starred in the Wallace Shawn/Andre Gregory collaboration Grasses of a Thousand Colors
which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009 and then moved to the Joseph Papp Theater in 2013. She regularly appeared in the comedy revue Celebrity Autobiography''. In 2024, it was announced that Tilly would be appearing on
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, as a friend of the housewives, for the fourteenth season. == Poker career ==