Her best and most unlikely friendship, however, is with the hilariously droll Brit, Dr. Eleanor O'Hara (two-time Tony® nominee Eve Best). O'Hara's disdain for stupidity is matched only by her respect and affection for Jackie. "They're both very intelligent, very good at what they do and share the same sense of humor," says Best. "They're both the kind of people who are intensely good, but intensely unsentimental."
Watching and learning from Jackie's every move is Zoey Barkow (MERRITT WEVER, Michael Clayton, Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip), an impressionable, exuberant, first-year nursing student whose enthusiasm for nursing has yet to be dampened by the grind of cranky patients and a flawed healthcare system. "Jackie is the old hand who knows all the tricks," says Wever. "Zoey is brand spanking new and everything is really exciting...getting through the smallest procedure is a very big deal, but she sees that nursing is difficult and sometimes thinks she doesn't have the backbone or isn't good enough." 
And always throwing a wrench in the machine is the young, seemingly perfect, Dr. Fitch "Coop" Cooper (PETER FACINELLI, Twilight, Six Feet Under), who typifies the smug, Ivy League doctors who have trolled the hospital halls for decades on their way to the golf course, leaving the nurses to deal with the repercussions of their drive-by diagnoses. Says Facinelli, "It was half-way through the season and I still never knew what Dr. Cooper was going to do - he has these manic highs and lows. When he gets nervous he acts out with inappropriate sexual touching as you see in the pilot episode...I don't think Jackie's life would be as adventurous if Dr. Cooper wasn't in it."
And somehow, it's all held together by the old-guard, by-the-book, ER Administrator Gloria Akalitus (Anna Deavere Smith, The West Wing), who truly believes, "...there's not a move in the repertoire that I haven't seen."
Which begs the question: how could she not know that Jackie is having an affair with the pharmacist, Eddie Walzer (PAUL SCHULZE, The Sopranos), who showers her with love and the painkiller Percocet. Maybe it's because Jackie is just that good at keeping her secrets and flying under the radar, at least for now. Schulze says, "Jackie rationalizes very well, she's extremely gifted at what she does but at the same time addicted to pain killers...she's sleeping with my character in the pharmacy from time to time. I don't know about her husband and her husband doesn't know about me, so she's got a lot on her plate."
It's a high-wire act, juggling patients, doctors, an addiction to pain killers, and a picture-perfect family. Her husband, Kevin Peyton (Dominic Fumusa) and daughters Grace and Fiona (RUBY JERINS and DAISY TAHAN) experience Jackie as a focused and loving wife and mother. "She definitely has a bunch of different lives going on simultaneously but they're mutually exclusive," says Falco. "Somehow she's managing to keep them both going at a high rate of functionality. There's something psychotic about it, but completely intriguing and interesting to me."
NURSE JACKIE is at turns wicked, heartbreaking and funny. At its center is a character, compelled by her own sense of morality. As Brixius says, "If she didn't think what she was doing was justifiable, she wouldn't be doing it. Jackie is, among many things, a lapsed Catholic - who is faithful to her vision of right and wrong. She's proud, and she's smart. She's a little bit like ‘Dirty Harry' if ‘Dirty Harry' were a nurse...and a lady...in her forties."
Perhaps there will be a time when Jackie can break free of her secrets and addictions, but until that time, NURSE JACKIE offers a riveting glimpse inside the heart and soul of a functioning addict, a loving wife, mother, and a first-class nurse. Falco says, "Jackie is a force to be reckoned with...She gets done what needs to get done and doesn't let anyone or anything get in her way."
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Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.
