Aha! Thanks to the internet and far more time spent thinking about this than is merited, the penny finally dropped. The girl in my dream of a few nights ago whom I was sure was an actress of some type has turned out to be Marisa Tomei. She appeared in my nightscape circa her “A Different World” days.
A couple of meta things:
Dream bits. I dreamed about nursing, so that’s fair warning for the squeamish.