{"id":218219,"date":"2026-05-03T12:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218219\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T12:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:22:08","slug":"nbcs-brooklyn-nine-nine-who-is-the-curly-haired-background-character-nancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218219\/","title":{"rendered":"NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Who Is The Curly-Haired Background Character, Nancy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBC\u2019s Brooklyn Nine-Nine went off the air years ago, yet it remains a memorable piece of pop culture history. The countless memes and reels featuring clips from the show are a testament to how influential Brooklyn Nine-Nine was on the culture. More importantly, the show keeps getting more interesting despite no longer being in syndication. <\/p>\n

The reason that the cop-comedy drama has piqued interest once again is its cast. While most of us are familiar with the main squad, a few characters who were in nearly every episode don\u2019t even have an IMDB credit to their name. An extra named Nancy comes to mind.<\/p>\n

Nancy gets a single shoutout during a Season 6 episode<\/a> when Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) lets her know that she can go to her therapist appointment. The interaction is a strange one-off considering she\u2019s in the background of nearly every other episode but never hear Nancy speak. Audiences can briefly see the actress standing behind the breakroom window, watching the action inside in this rare image found on IMDB<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s odder is that the actress who portrays Nancy isn\u2019t listed anywhere in the show credits. Everyone, including background players, has credits on the entertainment-based site except Nancy. A reasonable person might assume that NBC would credit a character who\u2019s a recurring stand-in, but then again, there might be a good explanation.<\/p>\n

In all likelihood, the background stand-ins are writers who give the actors notes in between takes. The Office was notorious for having its show\u2019s writers barely off-camera, working in the Annex<\/a>, while the onscreen staff filled the bullpen. Brooklyn Nine-Nine presumably utilized a similar tactic, positioning its writers in the background of scenes. That would explain why Nancy is always around yet seemingly not involved in the plots.<\/p>\n

Nancy\u2019s Role On The Squad<\/p>\n

What\u2019s up for debate is Nancy\u2019s role on the squad. There are only so many occupations within the police precinct, and considering her proximity to confidential information, Nancy is probably a detective. Some fans may find such a conclusion a reach since she doesn\u2019t participate in ongoing cases, but that\u2019s a slight oversight. Other background actors play detectives<\/a> within the nine-nine, too\u2014ones who don\u2019t have speaking parts on the show. Thus, it\u2019s within the realm of possibility that the character works in admin. She always seems to have files in her hands\u2014something that suggests she handles paperwork in the precinct. <\/p>\n

Gina Linetti, Captain Holt\u2019s assistant, is merely one employee on their floor, and no one expects the laissez-faire secretary to be the sole person responsible for filing in the precinct. Gina\u2019s shoutout to Nancy in Season 6, Episode 2, and the informality of her language, seems to point to them being familiar\u2014a sign that they work closely together; another indication that Gina and Nancy split up filing duties for their detective coworkers.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Nancy\u2019s appearances, it\u2019s probably fitting that we recap her history on the show. Well, as mentioned previously, Nancy is a background player who appears as far back as the pilot. She\u2019s seen walking past a window to the bullpen, just barely being visible in Episode 1. Her curly hair is very distinguishable from everyone else\u2014easy to spot from a distance. Bear in mind that some of Nancy\u2019s appearances are obscured, or they\u2019re so brief that only the backside of her hair is shown on camera. <\/p>\n

Regardless, she\u2019s in every Season 1 episode in some form or another. Sometimes, she\u2019s in the bullpen with the detectives, and in others, Nancy walks past the squad with a file\/folder on an unknown task. Her other appearances throughout the series are equal in scope, popping in and out of scenes without saying a word. There\u2019s no taking anything away from her role\u2014Nancy is merely outside the central bubble. She\u2019s like the majority of precinct officers, detectives, and administrators, who don\u2019t interact with the main cast. They\u2019re present but are seemingly out of earshot. <\/p>\n

Interestingly, they have to interact with Captain Holt at some point, yet none of them ever walk in or out of the captain\u2019s office. We know Holt speaks with more officers than those in his inner circle, based on minor pieces of dialogue in other episodes. Officer Brian, for one, ousted Jake when the latter failed to successfully impersonate Holt during a sequence involving the armory. The audience never sees them interact, but based on the crosstalk between Jake, Holt, and Officer Brian, the latter two have had multiple conversations\u2014none of which made it on the show. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a wonder the audience never sees Nancy having interactions with Captain Holt. Assuming she is a detective like Rosa, Jake, or Amy, she must\u2019ve performed debriefs with the precinct\u2019s commanding officer. Of course, when the number of employees in a precinct can be in triple digits, it\u2019s reasonable that Holt wouldn\u2019t be able to speak with everyone. For all we know, Nancy is on a different shift than the main squad, and her brief pop-ins are of the character as she\u2019s leaving or entering work. <\/p>\n

In any case, it\u2019s time that Nancy receives a series credit. No one\u2019s asking to write an expos\u00e9 on the actress, but she deserves as much recognition as anyone else, which, at the very least, is an online acting filmography.<\/p>\n

NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine is currently streaming on Peacock and Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBC\u2019s Brooklyn Nine-Nine went off the air years ago, yet it remains a memorable piece of pop culture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5646,98,100,99,84418,86048,23995,86049,86046,9,24,86047,63,9277,41904],"class_list":["post-218219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-background","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-character","tag-curlyhaired","tag-is","tag-nancy","tag-nbcs","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ninenine","tag-nyc","tag-the","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}