Sophia Soto
One aspect that makes 9-1-1 stand out is that it puts the spotlight on different fields of first responders, including firefighters, police officers, dispatchers, and, most likely, nurses in the upcoming tenth season. Everything is connected thanks to our lead characters, and no one better represents that than Maddie, portrayed by Jennifer Love Hewitt. She is a 911 dispatcher, linked to the 118 by her brother, Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark), and her husband, Howie “Chimney” Han (Kenneth Choi).
“Maddie is empathy; that is who she is. She ran to the call center in the worst time of her life, needing somebody to help her. And so, the reason Maddie, to me, is the dispatcher that she is, is because those people that call, Maddie has been that person a thousand times, but was unable, probably for 10 years of her life, to ever pick up the phone and call without worry that something bad would happen to her, right? So, when somebody is on that call and they’re asking her to be their person, it is not a job. I don’t think being a dispatcher is a job for Maddie.”
She continued to express, “That’s the one thing that I know I have missed in being in the Sue position, and it’s the one thing that I think Maddie will hopefully be able to find if she stays in that position is where does that part of what she needs from this job find her again? Maybe there’ll be a happy medium, or maybe that empathy will be with Theo and her brother. I don’t know where that thing is, but that is the core of who Maddie is to me.”
Throughout the course of the series, Maddie has had her fair share of trauma and challenges. While season 9 showed her in a good place, settled with her family after having her second child in the season 8 finale, it ended with her stepping up to run the call center after her boss had a stroke.
“The first day doing it, like walking the floor with the iPad and being in Sue’s position, I was panicked, on screen, off screen,” Hewitt shared. “I was like, ‘This feels so weird. I don’t know what I’m doing.’ And then, as we kind of got a couple of episodes in, I was like, ‘I like this. I like this for Maddie. I like this for me. This is fun and different.’ Nine seasons in, it gave me something new to do in that same space that I work in all the time, and I feel like sometimes that gives you the opportunity to do and see new things in somebody that you play. So I really enjoyed it.”
It’s unclear how long she’ll have the position, but regardless, it will definitely be a significant experience for the character: “I think it’s really empowering for somebody like her, too, because I think Maddie lived a very large majority of her life not being a leader and being led, whether it was by her incredibly overbearing parents or in having to be sort of a sister figure to a brother who, you know, they kind of struggled in their relationship in the beginning, and then being in a long term abusive relationship where she had zero control. I think her panic of what am I going to do in a leadership role, it comes with a lot of stuff behind it, and it’s been nice to sort of see her do that. I wonder how she’ll go back or if she’ll be able to go back.”
Watch Awards Radar’s full video interview with the actress below, where we discuss what Maddie’s job means to her, stepping into a leadership position, finding her place in the 118, how the Buckley siblings represent a second chance story, why her character was the perfect choice for the AI plot, and much more.
All episodes of 9-1-1 are streaming on Hulu and Disney+. The show will return as part of ABC’s Thursday night lineup this fall.
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