Actress Margulies plays real-life American heroine

The actress portrays a brilliant scientist in the US army who risked her life to help stop an Ebola-like outbreak in the US

Julianna Margulies plays Dr Nancy Jaax in The Hot Zone.
Julianna Margulies plays Dr Nancy Jaax in The Hot Zone. PHOTO: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
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Julianna Margulies has made a career out of playing smart and capable women - the wise Nurse Hathaway on medical show ER (1994 to 2009) and legal eagle Alicia Florrick on The Good Wife (2009 to 2016).

But while those characters were dreamt up by TV writers, the scientist she portrays in thriller The Hot Zone is the first time the Emmy-winning actress has played a real person, someone she believes is "an American hero", no less.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 27, 2019, with the headline Actress Margulies plays real-life American heroine. Subscribe