For every woman who's ever had to deal with strangers on the street yelling “Smile!”, Maura Tierney is a hero.
She’s delivered shaded performances for decades, from Lisa on NewsRadio to Abby on ER to Helen on The Affair. But while the roles vary, her characters are all intelligent, no-nonsense women who refuse to plaster on a grin just to make others feel better.
They’re all pretty great with a dispassionate smirk, though.
The 24th season of Law & Order brought Tierney on as Lieutenant Jessica Brady, who oversees the homicide squad. Back in 1991, in the show’s second season, she did a guest spot (like many a New York actor). Now, she’s one of the leads.
Still, even Tierney isn’t quite positive who Brady is. “Because of the way the show is constructed, there’s not a lot of personal details,” Tierney says from her Greenwich Village home. “I like playing her. She doesn’t rely on charm to get ahead.”
She envisions Brady as a cop’s daughter who learned to “distinguish herself without using any kind of feminine wiles.”
Tierney didn’t check in with the women who have played the detectives’ boss before her: Camryn Manheim, who spent three seasons on the show, and S. Epatha Merkerson, who clocked 17 seasons. Still, Merkerson sent Tierney flowers.
In 2024, before returning to Law & Order, Tierney appeared in American Rust: Broken Justice on Prime Video and the natural-disaster thriller Twisters. She’s also done plenty of theater over the years, a passion that started in her native Boston.
The daughter of Pat, a realtor, and Joseph M. Tierney, a longtime Boston councilman, Tierney first crossed a stage at her Montessori preschool, playing an angel. Later, the drama teacher at her all-girl Catholic high school introduced her to absurdist plays.
After pursuing theater at NYU, Tierney headed to L.A. for a summer. That lasted 18 years. She waited tables and slung ice cream on Venice Beach as her career took root.
Some of the enduring hits she worked on also yielded decades-long friendships. Tierney recently had dinner with Stephen Root and Dave Foley from NewsRadio.
She's still close to Parminder Nagra and Linda Cardellini from ER.
Law & Order recently hosted an ER mini-reunion: Eriq La Salle directed the episode "Greater Good," and Mekhi Phifer was the suspect. La Salle also directed Tierney's October debut as the lieutenant.
"It was really nice to see a familiar face," she says of La Salle. "He's a great director and a really nice man. Mekhi and I were very tight on [ER], so to work with him again was awesome."
Tierney doesn't have traditional hobbies other than being a voracious reader, though she's gone skydiving twice. "It's an amazing reset," she says. "When you hit the ground, you're like, 'Holy shit, I just jumped out of a plane.' Nothing else matters. There'd be world peace if everybody just jumped out of a plane. It's like a Zamboni over your brain. You just feel fantastic."
That makes her smile, as does recalling that she and Tom Hanks made their Broadway debuts together in 2013, in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy. She's now gearing up for a downtown play with the Wooster Group, an experimental theater company she adores and has toured with. Law & Order will ensure she wraps by 6 p.m. for performances.
"That's very rare, and I'm deeply grate-ful," Tierney says. "Who gets to be on this kind of OG procedural crime show by day, and then go do some amazing downtown experimental theater by night?"
This article originally appeared in emmy Magazine, issue #4, 2025, under the title "A Life in Balance."
