Morena Silva de Vaz Setta Baccarin (born June 2, 1979 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a Brazilian-American film and television actress best known for roles in several American science fiction television series: as Inara Serra in the series Firefly and the follow-up film Serenity; as Adria in the series Stargate SG-1 and the follow-up film Stargate: The Ark of Truth; as recurring character Erica Flint in The Mentalist and as Anna in the 2009 version of the series V. She co-starred as Jessica Brody in the Showtime series Homeland. She has also voiced several DC-Comics characters.
She was married to director Austin Chick and they have a son, Julius. However, she became romantically involved with her Gotham co-star Benjamin McKenzie, causing Chick to file for divorce, and she gave birth to her daughter, Frances, with McKenzie on March 2, 2016. The pair got engaged in November 2016, and married the following year. The couple welcomed son Arthur in March 2021.
Filmography:
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as Carmen the Tranny in the original Pilot. She was replaced with Brittany Daniel once FX greenlit it.
- Firefly (2002-2003) as Inara Serra
- Serenity (2005) as Inara Serra
- Justice League (2005-2006) as Black Canary
- The O.C. (2006) as Maya Griffin
- How I Met Your Mother (2006) as Chloe
- Stargate SG-1 (2006-2007) as Adria
- Las Vegas (2007) as Sara Samari
- Heartland (2007) as Nurse Jessica Kivala
- Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008) as Adria
- Dirt (2007) (2008) as Claire Leland
- NUMB3RS (2008) as Lynn Potter
- Medium (2009) as Brooke Hoyte
- V (2009-2011) as Anna
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2011) as Cheetah
- Homeland (2011-2013) as Jessica Brody
- The Mentalist (2011-2014) as Erica Flynn
- The Good Wife (2012-2013) as Isobel Swift
- Son of Batman (2014) as Talia al Ghul
- The Flash (2014-2021) as Gideon note
- Spy (2015) as Karen Walker
- Gotham (2015-2019) as Dr. Leslie Thompkins
- Batman: Bad Blood (2016)
- Deadpool (2016) as Vanessa Carlysle
- Destiny 2 (2017) as Sagira in the DLC expansion Curse Of Osiris
- Deadpool 2 (2018)
- A Series of Unfortunate Events (2019) as Beatrice
- Greenland (2020) as Allison
- The Twilight Zone (2019) (2020) as Michelle Weaver (episode "Downtime")
- The Endgame (2022) as Elena Federova
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Tropes associated with this actress:
- Damsel in Distress: Since she often plays the Love Interest of a named character, she often winds up captured. This is most notable in Gotham and Deadpool; she is constantly in distress in both franchises, but does see her be far more proactive than most damsels (the nature of Gotham city, and the fact she's dating Jim for a lot of the show, means she's an easy target for crooks to lure Jim into traps, while in Deadpool, she can throw down a punch when needed, but can very easily be overpowered when unprepared).
- Ms. Fanservice: She had a Toplessness from the Back scene in Firefly and a fairly revealing couple of sex scenes in Deadpool. She went topless in Death In Love and multiple times on Homeland as well. Lampshaded in Deadpool, where the opening credits list her as "a hot chick".
- Production Posse: DC Comics adaptations just love hiring her.
