Mary McCormack

Mary McCormack is an American actress born on February 8, 1969, in Plainfield, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Norah and William McCormack, whose marriage ended in divorce in 1990. Her sister Bridget served as chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and as a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, while her brother William is an actor, writer, and producer who appeared in a recurring role as FBI agent Robert O'Connor on In Plain Sight. McCormack graduated from the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison, New Jersey, in 1987, and in 1991 earned a Bachelor of Arts in comparative arts, with a focus on painting and creative writing, from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

McCormack's introduction to performing came at age 12, when she appeared in Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. She subsequently trained at the William Esper Studio and worked in New York theater with companies including The Atlantic Theater Company, Alice's 4th Floor, and Naked Angels, where she performed in Jon Robin Baitz's A Fair Country. Her Broadway career spanned from 1998 to 2008 and included productions of Cabaret and Boeing-Boeing. Her performance as Gretchen in the 2008 Broadway revival of Boeing-Boeing earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.

On television, McCormack built a substantial career across multiple long-running series. She portrayed Justine Appleton on the legal drama Murder One from 1995 to 1997 and later joined the cast of The West Wing in 2004, playing Deputy National Security Adviser and former CIA officer Kate Harper, a role she held through the series' final three seasons until 2006. Her most prominent television role came with the USA Network drama In Plain Sight, in which she starred from 2008 to 2012 as Deputy U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon, an officer attached to the Federal Witness Security Program's Albuquerque, New Mexico, office. The series ran for five seasons before concluding in 2012. McCormack later starred as Catholic family matriarch Peggy Cleary in the ABC sitcom The Kids Are Alright from 2018 to 2019, which was canceled after one season, and as Willie Day in the Starz drama Heels beginning in 2021, which was canceled after two seasons.

McCormack's film credits include Private Parts (1997), Deep Impact (1998), True Crime (1999), Mystery, Alaska (1999), K-PAX (2001), Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003), and 1408 (2007). In 2016, she appeared in the Amazon exclusive special An American Girl Story – Maryellen 1955: Extraordinary Christmas alongside Alyvia Alyn Lind. In October 2013, she began filming The Crash, directed by Aram Rappaport and produced by Hilary Shor, Atit Shah, and Aaron Becker, alongside a cast that included Frank Grillo, AnnaSophia Robb, Minnie Driver, Dianna Agron, John Leguizamo, Ed Westwick, Christopher McDonald, and Maggie Q. The film was released direct-to-VOD and in limited theatrical release on January 13, 2017.

In July 2003, McCormack married director and producer Michael Morris, with whom she has three children. Together, McCormack and Morris serve as executive producers of the game show 25 Words or Less, hosted by Meredith Vieira, with fellow executive producers Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky. In 2012, McCormack reunited with cast members of The West Wing to film a video encouraging voters to support nonpartisan candidates, which also promoted her sister Bridget's successful candidacy for the Michigan Supreme Court. McCormack is the godmother of her In Plain Sight co-star Fred Weller's daughter.