We've all seen the movie Deep Impact. That 1998 thriller where a comet barrels toward Earth, forcing world leaders to pick lottery winners for survival bunkers while the rest of us brace for the end.

Deep Impact put Leelee Sobieski on the map in 1998. But it locked her into a version of Hollywood that never quite fit. By the time she walked away in 2012, she’d already lived several careers’ worth ...