
Acting
Deirdre O'Connell
Born
1951-12-30 (74)
Place of birth
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA
Known for
Acting
Credits
86 titles
Deirdre O'Connell (born December 30, 1951) is an American character actress. She began her career at Stage One, an experimental theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts. She made her Broadway debut in the 1986 revival of The Front Page, and was nominated for the 1991 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in the off-Broadway production Love and Anger. She is the recipient of two Drama-Logue Awards and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her stage work in Los Angeles. O'Connell made her screen debut in Tin Men. Additional film credits include State of Grace, Straight Talk, Leaving Normal, Fearless, City of Angels, Hearts in Atlantis, Imagina…
Known for
8.0In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
7.3In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
Law & Order
1990
7.6The third installment of the “Law & Order” franchise takes viewers deep into the minds of its criminals while following the intense psychological approaches the Major Case Squad uses to solve its crimes.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
2001
8.1John Reese, former CIA paramilitary operative, is presumed dead and teams up with reclusive billionaire Finch to prevent violent crimes in New York City by initiating their own type of justice. With the special training that Reese has had in Covert Operations and Finch's genius software inventing mind, the two are a perfect match for the job that they have to complete. With the help of surveillance equipment, they work "outside the law" and get the right criminal behind bars.
Person of Interest
2011
7.8Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Johnson's quirky personality and hard-nosed approach often rubs her colleagues the wrong way, but her reputation as one of the world's best interrogator eventually wins over even her toughest critics.
The Closer
2005
8.2Carmy, a young fine-dining chef, comes home to Chicago to run his family sandwich shop. As he fights to transform the shop and himself, he works alongside a rough-around-the-edges crew that ultimately reveal themselves as his chosen family.
The Bear
2022
Film credits
2020s · 4 titles
6.5In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Eddington
2025
4.8A couple on a romantic getaway find themselves stranded at sea when a tropical storm sweeps away their villa. In order to survive, they are forced to fight the elements, while sharks circle below.
The Requin
2022
7.5Made in Eddington gives a behind the scenes look at the making of Ari Aster's modern political nightmare.
Made in Eddington
2025
7.0Clinging to the reputation of his one hit novel, writer Guy Laury accepts a winter residency on a reclusive island whose residents seem friendly at first. The discovery of a lost manuscript and its possible ties to a longstanding local murder case, however, throw into question the intentions of everyone around him.
Ghostwritten
2022
2010s · 13 titles
7.1A young boy whose parents just divorced finds an unlikely friend and mentor in the misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic, war veteran who lives next door.
St. Vincent
2014
6.2Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.
Being Flynn
2012
7.0Controversy and legal problems follow Dr. Jack Kevorkian as he advocates assisted suicide.
You Don't Know Jack
2010
6.0A young woman is forced to reflect on her first relationship when she inadvertently moves into her ex boyfriend's apartment building.
The Boy Downstairs
2018
NRAnton Chekhov's "The Seagull" is interpreted by a handful of top-shelf stage actors from New York City as they converge in an upstate lakeside retreat. Surrounded by a menagerie of paper lanterns, circus tents, ten-foot tall puppets and floating furniture, the players merge with the reckless choices of their characters.
I Am a Seagull
2019
5.0Two codependent roommates, on the verge of eviction, flee New York for the promise of sunshine in Los Angeles where their friendship is tested by a chance at fame, a fortune teller and an amorous wealthy aunt.
Apartment Troubles
2014
4.9A newly single New Yorker must re-locate to Florida for her dream job. She drives south with her widowed dad, her mom's ashes in a coffee can, and a GPS with a mind of its own.
Detours
2016
6.1Diane is a devoted friend and caretaker, particularly to her drug-addicted son. But as those around her begin to drift away in the last quarter of her life, she is left to reckon with past choices and long-dormant memories.
Diane
2019
7.0A man must return home to rural Kentucky where he and his family, fragmented and haunted, still carry the stigma of a murder his brother committed 20 years ago.
In the Radiant City
2016
6.8Convinced that reuniting with his old girlfriend will bring his dreams to fruition, Gabriel risks it all in a desperate and increasingly obsessive pursuit.
Gabriel
2015
6.7A closeted young woman brings her girlfriend home for Thanksgiving, only to have her coming-out efforts thwarted by the unexpected arrival of her male roommate.
Lez Bomb
2018
NRA comedy about New Yorkers who can’t afford to live in New York anymore
The Holdouts
2017
NRWhen a failed baseball player's ex-girlfriend moves back to the neighborhood with her seven-year-old daughter, he realizes he carries more regrets than how he handled his baseball career.
The Quitter
2014
2000s · 16 titles
8.1Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2004
6.1During a wild vacation in Las Vegas, career woman Joy McNally and playboy Jack Fuller come to the sober realization that they have married each other after a night of drunken abandon. They are then compelled, for legal reasons, to live life as a couple for a limited period of time. At stake is a large amount of money.
What Happens in Vegas
2008
6.8A widowed mother and her son change when a mysterious stranger enters their lives.
Hearts in Atlantis
2001
7.5A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
Synecdoche, New York
2008
7.2The comedic adventures of an introverted boy left on the doorstep of a pair of reluctant, eccentric great-uncles, whose exotic remembrances stir the boy's spirit and re-ignite the men's lives.
Secondhand Lions
2003
6.6A grieving doctor is being contacted by his late wife through his patient's near death experiences.
Dragonfly
2002
6.1Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
A Dog Year
2009
6.2Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewer's door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.
The Greatest
2009
6.8A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.
Wendy and Lucy
2008
5.8Stephanie collapses in a pool of blood while on a school skiing trip. A doctor discovers that the blood is the after-effects of giving birth. Soon afterward, the body of a newborn baby is found in a toilet, its mouth blocked with toilet paper. Despite Stephanie's insistence that her child was stillborn and that she had no idea that she was pregnant, she is arrested for the murder of the child.
Stephanie Daley
2007
6.1Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.
Winter Passing
2006
6.5Matt Travis is good-looking, popular, and his school's best competitive swimmer, so everyone is shocked when he inexplicably commits suicide. As the following year unfolds, each member of his family struggles to recover from the tragedy with mixed results.
Imaginary Heroes
2004
5.2A dramatic comedy about a self-induced attention-deficit disordered, learning disabled, Tourette's syndrome suffering, balance impaired, ex-alcoholic young man from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the gold-digging girl who inspires him to try to get it together.
American Loser
2007
6.8Based on the true story of a modern-day witch hunt, in which a couple is falsely accused and imprisoned for molesting their own children.
Just Ask My Children
2001
5.8Relative Evil (aka Ball in the House) - When JJ (Jonathan Tucker) returns home from rehab, he is greeted by a conniving family who are plotting to cash in on a life insurance policy before his 18th birthday
Relative Evil
2001
3.9Dr. Bill Matthews is struck by lighting. While recovering at the hospital where he works, he begins an intimate relationship with Dr. Craig Murphy, who invites Bill to join a strange group of lightning survivors.
Socket
2007
1990s · 22 titles
6.8When a guardian angel – who invisibly watches over the citizens of Los Angeles – becomes captivated by a strong-willed heart surgeon, he ponders trading in his pure, otherworldly existence for a mortal life with his beloved. The couple embarks on a tender but forbidden romance spanning heaven and Earth.
City of Angels
1998
6.9Hell's Kitchen, New York. Terry Noonan returns home after a ten-year absence. He soon reconnects with Jackie, a childhood friend and member of the Irish mob, and rekindles his love affair with Jackie's sister Kathleen.
State of Grace
1990
5.7While incarcerated for murder, cartoonist Jack Deebs found escape by creating Cool World, a series featuring a voluptuous femme fatale named Holli Would. But the artist becomes a prisoner of his own fantasies when Holli transports Jack into Cool World with a scheme to seduce him and bring herself to life. Hard-boiled detective Frank Harris – the only other human in Cool World – cautions Jack with the law: Noids (humans) don't have sex with doodles (cartoons). However, flesh proves weaker than ink as Holli takes human form in Las Vegas, staring in a trans-universal chase that threatens the destruction of both worlds.
Cool World
1992
7.2Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.
Smoke
1995
5.3We follow the two Texas doctors who invented the modern breast implant and its surgical procedure. However, when success and money come their way, they split up and follow different paths. One becomes the surgeon of the everyday woman while the other's career freefalls and has to settle with strippers and actresses. The film covers their history and their inventions, from the sixties until today.
Breast Men
1997
6.1Honest and straightforward small-town Shirlee Kenyon chucks her boyfriend and heads for Chicago. Accidentally having to host a radio problem phone-in show, it is clear she is a natural and is hired on the spot. But the station insists she call herself Doctor, and as her popularity grows a local reporter starts digging for the truth. Problem is, the more he is around her the more he fancies her.
Straight Talk
1992
5.9It's 1955. Lenny is a 14-year old boy who is totally fascinated by sex. He is too scared to "do it," so he dedicates his summer to seeing two other people do it. Easier said than done. Caught in the act of spying, his mother and stepfather ship him off to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in "the country" -- Queens. His plan looks like a bust and his summer seems destined for boredom, until he meets a whole new group of friends -- young teens who have a "sex club."
Just Looking
1999
6.9After surviving a plane crash that kills many others, Max Klein develops a sense of invulnerability, leading to radical, compulsive actions. Can a psychologist and a fellow guilt-ridden survivor bring him down to earth?
Fearless
1993
5.6In a battle of man versus machine, Martin, a top neurosurgeon who's studying brain malfunctions that cause mental illness, delves deep into his own mind to save himself from a megalomaniacal corporation.
Brain Dead
1990
6.1A 12-year-old boy comes of age in 1969 Key West against the backdrop of the Apollo moon landing, when he begins to sell cocaine so his mother can stop stripping.
CrissCross
1992
5.4When the Viking space capsule suddenly returns to Earth from its long ago trip to Mars, it brings with it an intelligent visitor that is part "Alien" and part "ET". Encased in armor, it extends a human like form from its shell to examine its surroundings and shows an interest in humans including a soft caress of a female scientist prior to the Army killing it. This only enrages its sibling.
Lifeform
1996
5.5A high-school teacher tries to help one of her troubled male students, who misinterprets her interest.
Trial by Fire
1995
6.0Darly, a waitress with a past that's weighing her down, decides to drive to Alaska to try and come to terms with her unfortunate history. Along the way, she meets Marianne, an impulsive young woman leaving an abusive relationship. The two hit the road together and keep driving north, bonding over the hardships that they have endured and meeting a number of eccentric characters as they get closer to their destination.
Leaving Normal
1992
5.2When a substantial portion of the nation's populace falls victim to a deadly plague, the tyrannical government quarantines them in camps, offering no alternative except death. But a gutsy rebel named Torch sets out to help the afflicted by leading an underground effort to spirit the victims to humane sanctuary.
Daybreak
1993
5.6A waitress who has psychic visions of murders before they happen is asked by a police detective to help find a serial killer.
A Deadly Vision
1997
6.1A widowed theatre director moves to a small Connecticut town where he gets involved in solving the murder of a millionaire, who was the most despised man in town.
Murder in a Small Town
1999
5.0Rock singer John Mellencamp makes his screen and directorial debut in this story by "Lonesome Dove" author, Larry McMurtry. The story, not too separated from Mellencamp's real life, finds him as a country music star whose meanderings and philandering has thrown his life into turmoil. Returning to his native Indiana to try to reestablish a normal life. Instead he takes up with an old lover (Lenz), ignoring his loving wife (Hemingway), and duplicating the lifestyle of his womanizing father (Akins).
Falling from Grace
1992
5.5When a single mother and high-powered Chicago ad executive returns to her home town in Kansas to care for her ailing father, she rediscovers the joys and hardships of farm life.
Kansas
1995
6.8As seen in flashback, this is the story of 43-year-old Julie a beautician who when 15 was forced by her mother to give up her baby for adoption. Her son, now 28, a minister, with his wife expecting, begins to search for his biological mother to find out his family medical history. She hears of his search and reunites.
Our Son, the Matchmaker
1996
6.5A veteran minor league pitcher in 1957 tutors a young phenomenon.
Pastime
1990
4.7Unable to get the police to help, a woman launches her own investigation to save her daughter from a dangerous prostitution ring.
Fighting for My Daughter
1995
6.5Working class mother becomes addicted to heroin, and soon her life falls apart.
Chasing the Dragon
1996
1980s · 4 titles
6.3A minor car accident drives two rival aluminum-siding salesmen to the ridiculous extremes of man versus man in 1963 Baltimore.
Tin Men
1987
4.4A British art expert leaves New York to buy a long-lost Renoir from a Georgia eccentric.
Stars & Bars
1988
5.5Czech refugee Krystyna travels to New York in search of her actress idol and fellow expatriate, Anna. After her own arrival in the Big Apple, Anna finds that celebrity often doesn't travel well, and she must go through a battery of humiliating auditions to try and get work in her adopted land. But when Krystyna and Anna finally meet, they provide a support structure for each other.
Anna
1987
The story of a strong-minded Polish mother, Halina Nowak who desperately wants her talented son, Jacek to have a life in the free world.
Misplaced
1989
Series credits
8.0In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
7.3In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
Law & Order
1990
7.3In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
Law & Order
1990
7.3In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
Law & Order
1990
7.6The third installment of the “Law & Order” franchise takes viewers deep into the minds of its criminals while following the intense psychological approaches the Major Case Squad uses to solve its crimes.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
2001
8.1John Reese, former CIA paramilitary operative, is presumed dead and teams up with reclusive billionaire Finch to prevent violent crimes in New York City by initiating their own type of justice. With the special training that Reese has had in Covert Operations and Finch's genius software inventing mind, the two are a perfect match for the job that they have to complete. With the help of surveillance equipment, they work "outside the law" and get the right criminal behind bars.
Person of Interest
2011
7.8Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Johnson's quirky personality and hard-nosed approach often rubs her colleagues the wrong way, but her reputation as one of the world's best interrogator eventually wins over even her toughest critics.
The Closer
2005
8.2Carmy, a young fine-dining chef, comes home to Chicago to run his family sandwich shop. As he fights to transform the shop and himself, he works alongside a rough-around-the-edges crew that ultimately reveal themselves as his chosen family.
The Bear
2022
7.2Former Syracuse, New York, police detective Carrie Wells has hyperthymesia, a rare medical condition that gives her the ability to visually remember everything. She reluctantly joins the New York City Police Department's Queens homicide unit after her former boyfriend and partner asks for help with solving a case. The move allows her to try to find out the one thing she has been unable to remember, which is what happened the day her sister was murdered.
Unforgettable
2011
7.2Chicago Hope is an American medical drama television series, created by David E. Kelley. It ran on CBS from September 18, 1994, to May 4, 2000. The series is set in a fictional private charity hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
Chicago Hope
1994
7.6A provocative legal drama focused on young associates at a bare-bones Boston firm and their scrappy boss, Bobby Donnell. The show's forte is its storylines about “people who walk a moral tightrope.”
The Practice
1997
7.0After years away from the CIA, Elizabeth McCord is pulled back into the political arena. The newly appointed Secretary of State is tough, fair, and smart, driving international diplomacy, wrangling office politics, and circumventing protocol as she negotiates global and domestic issues, both at the White House and at home.
Madam Secretary
2014
8.2Lawyer-by-day Matt Murdock uses his heightened senses from being blinded as a young boy to fight crime at night on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen as Daredevil.
Marvel's Daredevil
2015
6.6American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.
American Playhouse
1982
6.6American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.
American Playhouse
1982
6.7The emotional effects of an extramarital relationship between Noah, a New York City schoolteacher and budding novelist with a wife of twenty years and four children and Alison, a young waitress and wife from Montauk at the end of Long Island, trying to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragedy.
The Affair
2014
7.1Every day is a matter of life and death in a hectic New York City hospital, but for Nurse Jackie that's the easiest part. Between chronic back pain that won't quit, and a personal life on the constant edge of collapse, it's going to take a white lie here, a bent rule there, and a handful of secret strategies to relieve the pain, and stay one step ahead of total disaster.
Nurse Jackie
2009
NRIn the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic and theatres across the world closing their curtains indefinitely, SiriusXM host Seth Rudetsky and his husband, producer James Wesley have created Stars in the House, a daily live streamed series to support The Actors Fund and its services.
Stars in the House
2020
8.4With the city in peril following the seawall's collapse, Oswald "Oz" Cobb seeks to fill the power vacuum left by the death of Carmine Falcone and finally give his mother Francis the life he's always promised. But first, Oz must confront his enemies and his own demoralizing reputation as "the Penguin."
The Penguin
2024
6.9A rancher fighting for his land and family stumbles upon an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness, forcing a confrontation with the Unknown in ways both intimate and cosmic in the untamable American West.
Outer Range
2022
6.2A small town is forever changed when a mysterious machine appears, promising to reveal everyone's true potential. Soon residents start changing jobs, rethinking relationships, and questioning long-held beliefs—all in pursuit of a better future.
The Big Door Prize
2023
7.1A famous author is pulled into a twisted mind game with her rich, powerful new neighbor — who might be a murderer.
The Beast in Me
2025
6.9Chloe moves in New York's most elite circles with her lawyer husband Adam and teenage son Ethan by her side while her estranged sister Nicky tries to make ends meet and stay clean. When Adam is brutally murdered, the investigation sends shockwaves through the family and exposes long-buried secrets.
The Better Sister
2025
8.1The story of the United States' space program, from its beginnings in 1961 to the final moon mission in 1972.
From the Earth to the Moon
1998
8.5Four Los Angeles doctors run a practice in this drama that focuses as much on the problems in the American medical system as it does on the patients.
L.A. Doctors
1998
7.0Sirens focused on the work and lives of three rookie female Pittsburgh Police officers. Officer Sarah Berkezchuk is dealing with her failing marriage, Officer Lynn Stanton is a single mom, and second-generation cop Officer Molly Whelan has a bad attitude which starts to interfere with her job. Each rookie officer worked under a veteran cop, and each grows and becomes more focused as a result.
Sirens
1993
6.7Second Noah is a television drama that was broadcast in the United States on ABC television from February 5, 1996 to June 8, 1997
Second Noah
1996
