Amparo Garcia-Crow as Louisa in Straight A’s (2013)

In the closing credits of James Cox’s Straight A’s (2013), the name Amparo Garcia-Crow sits next to the character of Louisa. It is a supporting part in a film built around a prodigal son, a household in Shreveport, Louisiana, and a love triangle. It also belongs to a performer whose main career has been on the stage and as a writer and director.

The film follows Scott, played by Ryan Phillippe. He is a former addict who is pushed by the ghost of his dead mother to go home to the family he walked away from. There he meets his sister-in-law Katherine (Anna Paquin), once his high school sweetheart, and his brother William (Luke Wilson). Louisa is part of the world around that family. The film’s attention stays on the Henderson household, so the role is best read as part of the ensemble.

The world Louisa lives in

Dave Cole wrote the screenplay, credited as David Cole, and Cox directed. When the project was announced in August 2011, Variety described the premise. Scott has been in and out of rehab for about a decade, and his mother’s ghost urges him home. He arrives in Shreveport with a bag of pills and a sack of weed. Production began there on August 16, 2011, according to Collider’s report at the time.

The supporting cast was drawn from Louisiana and Texas. Powers Boothe played the father, Tess Harper the mother, and Riley Thomas Stewart and Ursula Parker the children, Charles and Gracie. Garcia-Crow is credited alongside Augustin Solis, who plays Carlos. In a film with this small a canvas, the people around the main family do much of the work of making a Southern town feel inhabited.

The performance in context

Garcia-Crow came to the screen from the theater. She has described herself as an artist who acts, sings, directs and writes plays, screenplays and songs. She has acted at the Kennedy Center and in regional theaters across the Southwest. Her television work includes NBC’s Friday Night Lights and ABC’s The Lying Game. That background suits a film that depends on small, grounded exchanges between actors more than on plot mechanics.

Louisa is a modest role, and the sources available do not single out a showcase scene for her. What they show is a performer working inside a tightly cast ensemble, in a story whose emotional weight rests on Phillippe and Paquin.

How the film was received

Reviews were mixed. Critics noted solid acting and Cox’s capable direction. Some found the drama thin, and at least one reviewer called the ending contrived. The film reached U.S. audiences in March 2013, distributed by Millennium Entertainment. It is a small, Louisiana-shot indie that many viewers now find through streaming.

What came after

The year after the film, Garcia-Crow made Love in the Sixties (2014), her feature documentary and directorial debut. She had earlier written and produced the short Death Rattle. She had also starred in the half-hour film Loaves and Fishes, which aired on PBS’s Territories series after premiering at SXSW. In the theater she developed the musical Strip, which was slated for an Austin premiere in January 2018.

Her recent work has moved toward storytelling and teaching. She is the founder and host of The Living Room: Storytime for Grownups in Austin, where true-life stories are told to live music. She has also written a memoir, Prophecy of My Undoing, and leads workshops, including a Bardo series on life’s transitions. Her website was updated in July 2026. In that career, Louisa in Straight A’s is one screen credit among many.

The header image is an AI-generated illustration, not an actual photo or film still.