In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the actress appeared in a number of television movies and a starring role in the 1992 Kurt Russell and Martin Short comedy "Captain Ron". 1994 saw her return to television in the recurring role of Camille Cherski on "My So-Called Life". In 1996, Place comically portrayed an evangelistic pro-life activist in Alexander Payne's debut feature film "Citizen Ruth". She had a strong dramatic role as Dot Black, mother of a terminally ill young man, in Francis Ford Coppola's version of John Grisham's "The Rainmaker" in 1997.