Comedy dramas have to toe the line between sharp and sentimental, and few have done it better than Nurse Jackie. The Showtime series ran for seven excellent seasons between 2009 and 2015, racking up awards and nominations thanks to its unflinching portrayal of topics like addiction and failing marriages, as well as a stellar cast doing a great job.
The series follows Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco), a committed nurse in a New York emergency department who’s not afraid to bend (and often break) the rules for what she thinks is the greater good. Watching Jackie navigate her tough job, burgeoning addiction, and her failing marriage makes for compelling viewing, and the blend of humor and raw emotion makes it the sort of television that you can binge again and again.
If you’ve been wondering what happened to the actors who elevated a great premise into an award winner, we got you covered.
Edie Falco (Jackie Peyton)
When she joined the cast of Nurse Jackie, Edie Falco was already a household name and critical darling for her work on The Sopranos. Yet, even with this pedigree, she managed to exceed expectations in the role of Jackie. She was rewarded for her excellent performance as the titular character with her fourth Emmy, and was nominated consistently for other honors throughout the show’s run.
Since Nurse Jackie ended in 2015 Falco has been unsurprisingly busy. She’s taken on a few television jobs with a mixture of main parts and cameos, including a lead role in Louis C.K’s Horace and Pete, playing Hillary Clinton in Impeachment: An American Crime Story, and appearing as herself in an episode of Impractical Jokers: Dinner Party. However, the place you’re most likely to have seen her is on the big screen, where she played General Frances Ardmore, the new leader of the Resources Development Administration in Avatar: The Way of the Water. She’s also continued her stage career, appearing in 2018’s The True and 2021’s Morning Sun (both in New York City). In the near future, she’s set to star in the Peacock comedy Bupkis alongside Joe Pesci and Pete Davidson, although no release date has been set for the series that’s based on Davidson’s life.
Eve Best (Dr. Eleanor O’Hara)
English actress Eve Best plays Jackie’s sardonic and brusque best friend Eleanor. The E.R. doctor is a British transplant and doesn’t actually seem to like her patients very much, but shares Jackie’s hatred of the broken system they both work in. Before her six seasons on the series, Eve was a successful and respected actor and director known mostly for her stage work, having picked up two Tony nominations and an Olivier Award (the British equivalent to a Tony). Audiences may have also recognized her from playing the role of American socialite Wallis Simpson in the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech.
After Nurse Jackie, Best has continued to act across multiple mediums. She played the lead female part of Mrs. Arbuthnot in a stage production of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, and repeated the role in a film adaptation of the play. However, in a global sense her most famous job since leaving Nurse Jackie is definitely her turn in House of the Dragon, where she plays the formidable Princess Rhaenys Targaryen. For now that’s her main job, but, as we all know, the Game of Thrones universe is a dangerous place to be.
Merritt Wever (Zoey Barkow)
Playing the part of the naively upbeat student nurse (and later full-time nurse and Jackie’s roommate) Zoey, Merritt Wever manages to show her character’s peppy attitude without being obnoxious. Zoey and Jackie’s is one of the most entertaining of the series, and Wever’s performance earned her an Emmy for her excellent work in season four.
Since Nurse Jackie, Wever has seen a lot of success. The Birdman actress has appeared in the critically-acclaimed Marriage Story, and her television work has seen her pick up another Emmy for her performance in the Netflix series Godless. She’s also been nominated for multiple awards for her turn in the heart-wrenching Unbelievable. We look forward to seeing her in season two of Severance.
Paul Schulze (Eddie Walzer)
A drug dealing pharmacist who’s also Jackie’s affair partner (and eventual fiancè), Eddie Waltzer (Paul Schulze) is one of the best embodiments of Nurse Jackie’s amoral take on the broken American medical industry. The lovelorn hospital worker is a fantastic and efficient pusher, supplementing his income with the money made from hawking prescription drugs, but would also do almost anything for the titular character, often to his own detriment.
Before Nurse Jackie, Schulze had a variety of high profile roles. He acted alongside Edie Falco in The Sopranos, and also had a major part in 24. Since playing Eddie, Schulze has had various roles in some popular shows, mixing it up with guest appearances and longer term parts, including a 12-episode arc on Suits, three episodes alongside Falco again in the short-lived police procedural Tommy, and a major role in the television series Punisher. In terms of the big screen, Shulze landed a role in the indie comedy drama Inside the Rain. With that said, the next time we’ll be able to see him is in the upcoming feature film The Requiem Boogie, which is currently in post production.
Peter Facinelli (Fitch “Coop” Cooper)
Peter Facinelli played Dr. Fitch “Coop” Cooper, an Ivy League graduate with an irritating mix of privilege and overconfidence. Even though he seems laidback (and makes everyone call him Coop), the audience soon learns his attitude is just a way of masking his own various insecurities. Although he and Jackie often have an antagonistic relationship, the pair’s relationship offers some of the funniest moments of the series, while also delivering some of the more sober points too.
Facinelli had been acting for well over a decade before taking on his role as Coop in Nurse Jackie, and was most famous for playing Edward’s adoptive father Dr. Carlisle Cullen in the Twilight films. He also had a recurring role in the critically acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under. Since Nurse Jackie‘s finale, Facinelli has appeared in multiple film and television roles, including a part on the CBS show Supergirl. In 2020 he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in The Vanished, a psychological thriller about a missing girl. His next big project appears to be the Zachary Levi film The Unbreakable Boy, which has had its release date pushed back from March 2022. It’s unknown when it will appear in theaters.
Dominic Fumusa (Kevin Peyton)
Jackie’s long suffering husband Kevin is played by Dominic Fumusa. Kevin owns a bar and is a pretty decent father to his and Jackie’s two daughters, as well as being a sweet husband. But once he discovers his wife’s infidelities and drug issues his charm hardens into something much meaner.
Fumusa had a decent amount of exposure before his role in Nurse Jackie. He ran the usual actor gauntlet of shows like Law and Order and CSI, and even had a few appearances in great series like The Sopranos and Sex and the City. Since his role as Kevin ended, Fumusa has been incredibly busy, working across both television and film. He had recurring parts in Homeland and the television adaptation of Taken, and acted alongside Adam Driver in the 2019 film The Report. Currently he’s working on two television shows, Godfather of Harlem on Epix, and the CBS reboot of The Equalizer, where he plays a detective on the tail of the titular character.
Betty Gilpin (Dr. Carrie Roman)
Although she only appeared in the final three seasons of Nurse Jackie, Betty Gilpin gave a standout performance as the morally dubious, promiscuous doctor Carrie Roman. Throughout her run in the series she manages to manipulate men — specifically Coop — into picking up her slack, although she eventually becomes pregnant with his baby, leading to the pair settling down.
While Nurse Jackie was a great springboard for Gilpin’s career, things really took off for her in 2017 when she was cast opposite Alison Brie in GLOW. She’ll be on the small screen in two different shows in the coming year: Mrs. Davis, in which she’ll star as a nun using her religion to confront problems around AI, and one of the three leads in Three Women, based on the 2019 nonfiction book of the same name.