Who Plays Samantha ‘Sinatra’ Redmond On Hulu’s Paradise?

It’s safe to say that, throughout Hulu’s new original series “Paradise” (created by “This Is Us” veteran Dan Fogelman, who reunites with that show’s star Sterling K. Brown), a lot of stuff happens in the show’s first season, which spans eight episodes and imagines a world where a private community lives in a Colorado bunker after an apocalyptic event. We spend the majority of our time with Brown’s Secret Service agent Xavier Collins, who discovers that his boss, President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), has been murdered in the very first episode … but Samantha Redmond, a woman who goes by the name “Sinatra” and runs the bunker largely because she’s the richest person who lives there, is also a very important character.

Sinatra is played by Julianne Nicholson, a Hollywood veteran who’s been appearing in projects since she got her start in ABC drama “Nothing Sacred” in a one-episode role in 1997. Since then, Nicholson has appeared in everything from “Ally McBeal” to “Masters of Sex” to “Boardwalk Empire” to “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” on the small screen, and on the big screen, she’s played supporting roles in projects like “August: Osage County,” “I, Tonya,” and “Blonde.” In 2023, she also led the independent film “Janet Planet.” If you’re unfamiliar with Nicholson, you might be surprised to learn that she’s a venerated actress with an Emmy win under her belt. Here are a few projects where you might have seen her before she started playing Sinatra on “Paradise.”

Starting in season 6 of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” which ran from 2001 to 2011 as part of Dick Wolf’s massive “Law & Order” empire, Julianne Nicholson joined the cast as Detective Megan Wheeler, a partner for Detective Mike Logan (“Sex and the City” star Chris Noth) who replaces Annabella Sciorra’s Carolyn Barek. Joined by her mentor Captain Daniel Ross (Eric Bogosian), Megan is a cop who’s been working undercover for years, and she’s got a troubled past (as cops on “Law & Order” usually do). Eventually, we learn that Megan’s father may or may not be dead and may or may not be a powerful mobster. She also finds herself mixed up with another apparently sinister man after she gets engaged to a businessman, Colin Ledger (Nicholson’s real-life husband Jonathan Cake), who ends up arrested for fraud and money laundering.

Megan works alongside Detective Zachary Nichols (Jeff Goldblum) after Mike retires, and eventually, Nicholson left the show in its eighth season … and at first, she just sort of disappears after her final appearance in an episode titled “Passion.” Luckily, another spin-off, the still-running “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” clears things up when Danny Pino’s character on that show, Detective Nick Amaro, mentions in that show’s 15th season that Megan Wheeler retired a few years prior.

As someone who was born and raised in Philadelphia, I can assure you that mimicking a Delaware County accent is no easy feat. I bring this up because in the 2021 HBO series “Mare of Easttown,” the (extremely talented) actors on the series pull it off with very varying degrees of success (I would argue that star Kate Winslet, who does a phenomenal job playing Marianne “Mare” Sheehan, struggles with stacking that Delco accent on top of her American one as she’s already British). Anyway, the point is that, as Mare’s lifelong best friend Lori Ross, Julianne Nicholson absolutely nails both the accent and this performance, which isn’t surprising when you consider she won an Emmy for it.

“Mare of Easttown” focuses on Winslet’s Mare, a grizzled detective sergeant in Easttown, Pennsylvania investigating one missing and one murdered girl with plenty of suspects at her disposal … and in a heartbreaking twist (spoiler alert!), it turns out that Lori’s teenage son Ryan (Cameron Mann) killed one of the girls, Erin McMenamin (future “Civil War” and “Priscilla” star Cailee Spaeny), breaking Lori’s heart into pieces. Nicholson is unbelievably great in “Mare of Easttown,” and the Emmy she took home for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series was incredibly well-deserved.

Admittedly, the film “Dream Scenario,” which was written and directed by the Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, belongs to Nicolas Cage. In the film, Cage plays a mild-mannered professor named Paul Matthews who starts learning that he keeps appearing in other people’s dreams in increasingly strange situations, but he’s not the aggressor or the main part of the dream — he simply stands there and watches as wild things happen. Apparently, this doesn’t just happen to folks Paul happens to know: People all over the world keep seeing him appear in their dreams. After an article is written about Paul, more and more people come forward, leaving his wife Janet, who’s played by Julianne Nicholson, baffled as her husband’s notoriety grows and grows.

Janet and Paul’s relationship is, ultimately, completely torn apart as Paul’s bizarre “power” starts going to his head. After he has a dalliance with a public relations assistant who was dreaming of him and Paul’s “fame” affects Janet’s career, she tells him he has to leave. When all is said and done and the movie is just about to end, Paul tries to use technology to enter Janet’s dreams and woo her, but there’s no point anymore. Nicholson is really lovely as Janet, a woman who watches her husband transform into the very worst version of himself … especially because you can’t help but feel for her as her life falls apart for the strangest reason ever.

You can watch Nicholson in “Paradise” on Hulu now.