Six. Long. Months.
That’s how much time had elapsed since Tracy Spiridakos left her plum gig on NBC’s Chicago P.D. All she could do was wait and try not to second-guess herself. “Oh yeah, I was 100% terrified!” she says. “My poor manager had to listen to me constantly. But sometimes you have to take a chance and see what’s out there.”
Then she received a pilot script for the crime drama Anna Pigeon, and in an instant she’d found what she wanted. Spiridakos plays the titular protagonist, a New Yorker who uproots to Montana and becomes a park ranger following the death of her husband.
“She wants to get into nature and just start over,” Spiridakos says. But amid the gorgeous and expansive Glacier National Park, Anna solves crimes — like the suspicious death of a fellow ranger and the disappearance of a wife and mom. The 10-episode series, based on bestselling novels by Nevada Barr, premiered August 7 on USA Network.
“I completely fell in love with the character and [showrunner] Morwyn Brebner’s script,” Spiridakos says. “I love that Anna is a little sarcastic and witty but also curious and determined. She doesn’t take herself too seriously, and I was drawn to that."
Tracy Spiridakos as park ranger Anna Pigeon
Spiridakos herself arrived in Hollywood almost 15 years ago. Though the Winnipeg native had already logged a few TV appearances — her first on-screen credit was a nurse on The CW’s Supernatural in 2007 (“I had a few lines, so I was very excited”) — she was living in Vancouver, working as a bank teller by day and a bartender-server by night to pay her mounting bills. Her low point: “I was trying to buy tampons for, like, $4.50, and my credit card was declined. I had to wait to get my tips and borrow money from my roommate.” The plan was to book a job in L.A. during pilot season and then go home and continue collecting checks at the bank, just in case a pilot didn’t get picked up.
A lead role on the NBC sci-fi series Revolution in 2012 changed everything. “I still had my job at the bank and didn’t want to give it up,” she says. “I remember my boss calling me and being like, ‘I’m going to take you off the roster. I just saw your face on the side of a bus.’” In retrospect, she adds, “That was the show that made me feel like I could do this and only this.” She also popped up in Episodes (Showtime), Bates Motel (A&E) and the MacGyver reboot (CBS).
After a CBS comedy pilot she shot with Adam Brody didn’t get picked up, Spiridakos turned to drama and joined Chicago P.D. in 2017 as detective Hailey Upton. She relished playing “a dark, intense character,” but seven seasons later, she was ready for a change. “I loved the cast and crew and writers, so the decision was really hard,” she says. “I was interested to see if I could get my own show. My curiosity overtook everything.”
She’s quick to point out a key difference between her gritty Chicago P.D. law-enforcement officer and Anna Pigeon: “Hailey didn’t let a ton of people into her world; Anna wants to connect with people. She just feels overwhelmed in her grief. You’ll see a shift throughout the season.”
Still, there’s an upside to portraying two confident “badass” women: “They don’t really care about people’s perception of them, and they just charge forward in everything they do. That’s something I wish I had a little bit more of,” she says. “I think playing Hailey and Anna will inform me going forward as a human being and as an actor.” For now? “I am still me!
This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, issue #10, 2026, under the title "Peak Performance."
