Local actress Marisa Coughlan as a recurrring character in "Bones"

Twin Cities native Marisa Coughlan, best known to date for her work in front of the camera, has impressed ABC enough with her behind-the-scene skills that it's picked up the pilot she wrote. Coughlan, who starred in her own series, "Side Order of Life," three years ago, will also serve as supervising producer for "Lost and Found," a sitcom about a New York bartender whose life goes topsy turvy when the 18-year-old son she gave up for adoption shows up at her doorstep. It's unclear whether Coughlan will also have an onscreen role.

Green lighting a pilot doesn't mean that it's guaranteed a slot on ABC's schedule next season, but it's got a fighting chance, especially with a survivor like Coughlan in charge.

Here's the article I wrote about her from 2007:

Fasten your seat belts. You're about to experience Marisa Coughlan's wild ride.
Every actor's career resembles a roller coaster - dips one year, peaks the next, but Coughlan's trip has been particularly bumpy. Her feature-film debut, which set her up to be the ingenue of the year, bombed. A highly touted ABC series, designed to make her the next Sarah Michelle Gellar, was canceled after just two weeks. A role on a popular drama mysteriously disappeared after half a season.
The Minneapolis native and Breck School graduate may have finally hit a smooth path. "A Side Order of Life," in which she stars as a young woman on the verge of both her career and her love life, this week joined Lifetime's Sunday-night lineup - one that features "Army Wives," the hottest cable show of the summer. But even if "Side Order" goes off track, Coughlan will be just fine. She's been here before.
"I'm not deluded anymore," she said. "No matter what you tell me, I'll say, `I'll believe it when I see it.' "
Coughlan, 33, had a different outlook in 1999, the year she made her feature-film debut in "Teaching Mrs. Tingle," co-starring Helen Mirren and Katie Holmes, and ABC's "Wasteland." Both projects were shepherded by then red-hot Kevin Williamson, coming off the success of "Dawson's Creek." Each fell short of expectations. Two years later, Movieline magazine named her "One to Watch." She wasn't.
"I had nothing but people telling me, this is going to be huge, this is going to be huge. Are you ready for it? And then it's like, ready for what? Bad reviews?" she said, chatting candidly in a Los Angeles hotel lobby, looking and conducting herself like Lindsay Lohan's older and wiser sister. "It was a superfast version of success and then, not so much. I mean, it's not like I became a household name. I just got swept up in the publicity machine and then it all fell apart."
The low point: 2001's Razzie-award winning "Freddy Got Fingered," in which Coughlan played a wheelchair-bound doctor who delights in having Tom Green beat her paralyzed legs with a bamboo cane.
"Thanks for reminding me," she cracked. "I definitely made choices that I wouldn't make if I could do it all over again. You can't beat yourself up over it."
One incident that helped put her career in perspective was the death of her father three years ago. That experience helped her prepare for her role as Jenny in "Side Order," a magazine photographer who's cruising along with a safe boyfriend, safe career and safe expectations, until her friend is diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. The news forces her to reexamine everything.
"The theme of the show is being authentic to yourself and trying to figure out what's your core rather than all these other influences projected upon you," she said. "Losing my dad forced me to hear my own voice a little more clearly."
"Side Order" executive producer Dan Jinks said casting Coughlan came after a long search.
"It is ridiculously hard to find someone to be a lead of a show that is attractive and talented and has that special something that's so hard to define," he said. "We feel lucky every single day that we have her as our lead."
Despite the strong buzz and enviable time slot, Coughlan refuses to get too confident. For financial security - and for pure enjoyment - she's gotten into the real estate game and was in the process of flipping a fixer-upper in Valley Glen, Calif. She also bought a house last year near Lake Harriet that she's renting out, but may move into down the road.
"It gives me peace of mind to know I can always go home," she said.