Missy Peregrym

Missy Peregrym never planned to end up in front of a film camera. She grew up in an athletic environment in British Columbia, and sports took up all her time. But advertising came knocking when she was eighteen. She started with Mercedes-Benz commercials and soon realized her look fit the standards of the Canadian film industry in the early 2000s.

And it worked.

She left modeling to make her acting debut on the series Dark Angel in 2002. It was a brief appearance, but enough to get casting directors to take notice of her profile. They weren't looking for a conventional pretty face, but someone who could keep up with the pace of action scenes without complaining.

The Gym as Her Office

In 2006, she starred in Stick It. It was her first major role, and it demanded a grueling physical training regimen to play a rebellious gymnast. The film earned $31.9 million at the U.S. box office. That production set the pace for her work over the following decade.

She prefers roles that demand real physical effort. In 2007, she joined the cast of Reaper after a brief stint on Heroes. That series allowed her to explore supernatural comedy without losing the tough-girl edge that defines her. But cable television would soon offer her the project that would prove most stable.

Uniform and Service Badges

In 2010, she landed her longest-running role to date. She played Andy McNally in Rookie Blue for six full seasons. Critics often compared her to a modern version of classic action heroines. The series was filmed in Toronto, and she performed nearly all of her own stunts.

She doesn't like using stunt doubles if she can avoid it.

After the series ended in 2015, she took on smaller projects and short films. She wanted something that wouldn't typecast her, but fate had other plans. The industry saw her as the perfect candidate to portray authority and the law on screen.

Dick Wolf's Factory

In 2018, she signed on to star in FBI on CBS. She plays Special Agent Maggie Bell. She is a key cog in the television machine of New York. Lead actors on this type of franchise typically earn more than $100,000 per episode according to the actors' union standards.

During the filming of season four in 2022, she had to take a leave of absence for maternity leave. The writers explained her temporary exit with a storyline involving sarin gas exposure. She returned in the season five episode titled Ready or Not to take back the team's leadership.

Her commitment to realism is total.

Production on the seventh season in 2024 kept filming on real locations in New York (including Queens and Brooklyn). The show's syndication deal guarantees broadcasts in more than 200 international territories through the end of the decade.