Why Hugh Dancy Finds It “Fun” To Watch Maura Tierney’s Law & Order Scenes
Lt. Brady's "quiet, kind of friendly" start to interrogations quickly escalates to this, Maura Tierney's Law & Order co-star Hugh Dancy said.
As fans of Law & Order know, Lieutenant Jessica Brady is a force to be reckoned with in the interrogation room at the 27th Precinct.
That’s part of what makes Brady, portrayed by Maura Tierney, so fun to watch — at least according to one of her co-stars.
Hugh Dancy, who plays Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price on the long-running criminal justice show, recently opened up to NBC Insider about what it’s like to share the screen with Tierney, who joined the series at the start of Season 24.
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“Maura’s great. I love watching her figure out what she’s going to do,” Dancy said of how Tierney approaches a suspect interrogation scene. “She keeps it very quiet and contained and then slowly... it starts to take shape.
"It’s very subtle, it’s very fun to watch," Dancy added. "And I think that the writers have been writing for that."
Read on to find out more about what Dancy thinks of Tierney's approach to playing Lt. Brady on Law & Order.
Why Hugh Dancy loves Maura Tierney’s interrogation tactics
When suspects are brought into the 27th Precinct, they may underestimate Brady, but the lieutenant quickly lets them know who's running the show, thanks to Tierney's acting skills.
“You can see it in some of the interrogation scenes that she’s doing over the course of the episode,” Dancy said of Tierney. "It’s just really fun to watch her, this apparently quiet, kind of friendly, unassuming person come in and just tie somebody up in knots.”
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That strategy was on full display in Season 24’s penultimate episode, “Tough Love,” which saw Brady break a member of basketball player Jackson Dean’s (Dushaun Thompson) inner circle.
Jackson cut his entourage off from his payroll — at the direction of his agent Ted Hunter (Stephen A. Smith) — before Ted was found stabbed to death in the park.
After detectives discovered an initial suspect had gotten into a physical altercation with Ted at a nightclub before the murder, they wanted to track him down. But the suspect had other ideas and took off on his motorcycle, leading Detectives Vincent Riley (Reid Scott) and Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) on one of the series’ trademark chase scenes before he was taken into custody.
“I would’ve run too,” Brady told the suspect after walking into the interrogation room.
She may have seemed understanding — or even disinterested at moments during the conversation — but by the interview’s end, she had the suspect sharing everything he knew about the fight.
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It’s these unparalleled interrogation skills that have made Brady an essential part of the show's NYPD team.
“I mean, anybody who’s watched the season has seen it shaping and growing in real time,” Dancy said of Law & Order Season 24, which concluded on May 15, 2025. The shocking season finale left Assistant District Attorney Samantha Maroun’s (Odelya Halevi) future uncertain, as it left open whether she could have had anything to do with the killing of the man believed to have murdered her sister.
How to watch Law & Order
The good news is that Law & Order has already been renewed and will be returning for its milestone 25th season this fall.
Until then, fans can catch up on all their favorite Season 24 moments by streaming episodes on Peacock.
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