Editor’s Note: As we reach the end of Women’s History Month, it’s important to recognize the Reel Women who play the heroes in our favorite One Chicago dramas. Today we celebrate the Women of Chicago P.D.
Chicago P.D. is a powerful police drama television series on NBC created by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, with executive producer Dick Wolf. The series follows the men and women who make up the uniformed patrol officers of the 21st District of the Chicago Police Department and the Intelligence Unit, a specialized squad that works to combat some of the city’s most horrific crimes. The show features many strong women — and we’re featuring the women who play them.
Marina Squerciati plays Kim Burgess
Officer Kim Burgess is a police officer in the CPD Intelligence Unit. Burgess is a former flight attendant who worked her way up the ranks from patrol officer to becoming an indispensable member of the Intelligence unit. In recent seasons she became a mother, adopting a child who witnessed the murder of her own mother. Burgess suffered trauma herself, when she was kidnapped, shot, and left for dead. She is struggling with PTSD as a result.
Here are some fun facts about Marina Squerciati:
She’s played the same character, Kim Burgess in five shows: Law & Order: SVU, Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago Justice.
She is an accomplished theater actress and singer, earning her degree from Northwestern University in theater. Squerciati won the Agnes Moorehead award for her performance as Judy Holliday in the off-Broadway play Just in Time: The Judy Holliday Story at the Lucille Lortel Theatre and she made her Broadway debut in an adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, directed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw. Off-Broadway, she starred in Manipulation, Beauty of the Father and others. Squerciati created the role of “Kerri Taylor” in the a cappella musical comedy Perfect Harmony, and was a member of The Essentials, a Canadian a cappella group founded in London, Ontario, Canada in 1993.
She danced with Macaulay Culkin in 1993 when she was cast as a Mouse and Polichinelle in director Emile Ardolino’s adaptation of the classic, The Nutcracker.
She is a mom in real life. In May 2017 she and her husband Eli Kay-Oliphant welcomed a baby girl. Squerciati shared both the news of her pregnancy as well as the birth of her daughter on her official Twitter.
Tracy Spiridakos plays Hailey Upton
Hailey Upton is a Chicago Police detective and a member of the Intelligence Unit in Chicago P.D. Upton has worked diligently as an officer, often blurring the lines of ethics and going as far as killing the man who shot Burgess and knowingly allowed Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) to destroy evidence, including the man’s body, in order to protect her. In a heart breaking seen Upton’s husband Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) also a member of the Intelligence Unit tells her he is leaving for Bolivia to track down drug cartels.
Here are some fun facts about Tracy Spiridakos:
She strongly identifies with her Greek heritage and speaks fluent Greek. Both parents are from Greece and the couple raised Spiridakos and her two brothers while running a Greek diner in her Canadian hometown of Winnipeg.
She was born in Canada and pursued her acting career in Vancouver where she quickly found a role on Supernatural before finding her way to a leading role in the Canadian Teletoon series Majority Rules!, playing 15-year-old Becky Richards.
She has studied kickboxing and Krav Maga. When she was cast in Revolution, executive producer Eric Kripke (Supernatural), fellow EP J.J. Abrams, and co-executive producer Jon Favreau were under the impression that she had a black belt when they cast her in her role, but as it turned out, she had only taken a few kickboxing classes at the time. She worked very hard studying Krav Maga and kickboxing to give her performance the authenticity that was expected of her.
Starred in two films with her ex-fiancée, Jon Cor: The Boy She Met Online (2010) and Being Human (2011).
Amy Morton plays Trudy Platt
Trudy Platt is a fan favorite, tough-as-nails Desk Sergeant at 21st District of the Chicago Police Department who can always be relied on to deliver a witty remark or sage advice. Before taking the desk job, Platt was a uniformed patrol officer who passed the detective’s exam twice but was shot in the lower back side of her hip and had to take a less physical role as the desk sergeant at District 21. Her marriage to Chicago Fire‘s Mouch (Christian Stolte) is one of the best crossover elements of the entire One Chicago franchise.
Here are some fun facts about Amy Morton:
She is a Chicago native, born in Oak Park, Illinois, and attended Oak Park and River Forest High School.
She was nominated two times for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performances in August: Osage County and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
A member of Steppenwolf Theater’s core group of actors since 1997, Morton has spent most of her career working in the Chicago theater scene. She has directed or performed in over 30 plays at Steppenwolf including Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Tony nomination), August: Osage County (Tony nomination), One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (also on Broadway), Hir, Cherry Orchard, The Berline Circle, Three Days of Rain, The Unmentionables, Space, The Royal Family and many others. Prior to her work with Steppenwolf, she was a member for the Remains Theatre Ensemble for 15 years and made her directorial debut there.
She performed on Broadway as Nurse Ratched, starring opposite Gary Sinise in the Tony Award winning 2001 revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
She dove into television as a guest star on Crime Story, The Equalizer, ER, Private Practice, and Homeland. From 2011 to 2012 she had the recurring role in the Starz political drama, Boss. From 2013 to 2014 she had another recurring role on the CBS drama, Blue Bloods. She began with Chicago P.D. in 2014 in the recurring role of Sgt Trudy Platt and returned the next season as a series regular.
Morton is married to Rob Milburn an award winning theatrical sound designer.
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