Amanda Seyfried Explains Why ‘Long Bright River’ Appeals to Lovers of Suspense & Family Dramas

Ileane Rudolph March 11, 2025, 12:24 pm

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Amanda Seyfried as Mickey — 'Long Bright River' — Matt Infante / PEACOCK

In this emotional eight-hour thriller based on the best-selling novel by Liz Moore, Emmy winner Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout) plays Mickey Fitzpatrick, a single mother and Philadelphia beat cop who faces both professional and personal challenges when one case gets personal.

“The series spotlights the often underserved, often forgotten but vibrant Kensington community in Philly,” says Seyfried. (Long Bright River was filmed in Brooklyn.) “It’s one-part mystery and one-part family drama with a lot of heart. Hopefully,” she adds, “people who like suspense will be into it, and people who like character-driven dramas will also be into it!”

Patrolling Kensington, the working-class neighborhood she grew up in that morphed into a haven for illegal drug activity, Mickey is disturbed by a spike of dead young homeless women. “Her level of support and compassion for these women is unwavering partly because her estranged sister Kacey [Ashleigh Cummings] is one of them,” the actress reveals.

Though Mickey became a cop at the urging of her then boyfriend, also an officer, “she’s stayed a patrol cop [rather than becoming a detective],” says cocreator and showrunner Nikki Toscano, “even though she’s never really had a love for the work she does, but because it kept her on the street, where she could watch her sister.”

While her colleagues in the precinct chalk the growing deaths of women to drug overdoses, Mickey suspects they’re the victims of a serial killer. When that proves to be true, her panic is absolutely compounded by the recent murders of sex workers in the neighborhood because she knows her sister, an opioid addict, could be next.

Amanda Seyfried Faces Trouble In Her Hometown in 'Long Bright River' Trailer

Driven to solve the crimes, she soon learns that Kacey, a longtime substance abuser, is missing, and without informing her superiors about her sibling, she goes on the hunt. “To solve the mystery of Kacey’s disappearance,” says Toscano, “she must reflect on the secrets of their past, and then break any rules to find her. We’ll also begin to suspect that Mickey may be hiding something and may not be the reliable narrator we think her to be.”

Unfortunately, says Seyfried, “Mickey is definitely on the brink of losing her mind and prone to blackouts because she’s buried in anxiety and turmoil. I love playing people who exist everywhere in the world and providing perspectives we need more of. Mickey is also faced with catastrophic addiction in her family and is constantly worried about losing her sister to it.”

She came from a broken family — her grandfather Gee (John Doman), who cared for the sisters, “was very tough on them, because he didn’t know how to deal with the loss of his daughter, their mother,” Toscano explains. No longer with her ex, Mickey’s whole life is her son Thomas (Callum Vinson), “a precocious young boy who is acutely attuned to his mother’s needs, sometimes at the expense of his boyhood.”

Mickey’s only real support comes from Aura (Britne Olford), a medical examiner who’s Mickey’s former school mate, and Truman (Nicholas Pinnock), her former partner, who’s on medical leave at the top of the series. “Truman becomes a true ally and sounding board in the search for her sister,” says Toscana, “and for the first time in her life inspires Mickey to let her guard down.”

Long Bright River, Series Premiere, Thursday, March 13, Peacock