Jenna Dewan Promoted to Series Regular on ‘The Rookie’ Season 4

Martin Holmes November 2, 2021, 8:34 am

Nathan Fillion and Jenna Dewan in The Rookie — Raymond Liu/ABC

ABC police procedural The Rookie has upped Jenna Dewan from recurring star to series regular for the currently airing fourth season.

Dewan plays firefighter Bailey Nune in the series, which centers around the Los Angeles Police Department. She first appeared as a guest star in the Season 3 finale, where she accepted John Nolan’s (Nathan Fillion) invite to be his date at Angela Lopez’s (Alyssa Diaz) wedding. Dewan’s character has continued to feature in Season 4, appearing in four of the first five episodes and becoming Nolan’s girlfriend.

The Rookie creator-showrunner Alexi Hawley previously spoke of using Dewan in a larger role. In an interview with TVLine following the Season 3 finale, he said, “We couldn’t really do a ton of love interest stuff during the middle of the pandemic, but at the end of the day it felt like, ‘Let’s find [Nolan] somebody to potentially take us into next season.’ And Jen is really special, and I love the character.”

Dewan, who started her career as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, got her big break as Nora Clark in the 2006 film Step Up. She later starred in the short-lived NBC series The Playboy Club and had a recurring spot on FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum. Her other TV credits include the Lifetime series Witches of East End, The CW’s Supergirl and its spin-off Superman & Lois, and Netflix’s musical drama Soundtrack.

She also hosted the NBC reality competition series World of Dance and Fox’s Flirty Dancing. Next, she will serve as a judge on CBS’ Come Dance With Me, which was filmed in Australia over the summer.

The Rookie is currently five episodes into its fifth season. Last week, it became the first TV show to ban “live” gunfire on set following the tragic shooting incident on the set of the Alec Baldwin film Rust.