Maggie Siff

Intro

Maggie Siff is an American actress whose work moves between ensemble television drama, independent film and the stage. Her best-known screen characters include Rachel Menken in Mad Men, Tara Knowles in Sons of Anarchy and Wendy Rhoades in Billions. Each belongs to a different dramatic world: advertising in the 1960s, a California motorcycle club and contemporary high finance. Siff's theater career preceded those television roles and continued alongside them, with work in Shakespeare, Sam Shepard, Tennessee Williams and new American plays.

Career snapshot

Originally from New York City, Siff earned a bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College and an MFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Her early professional work included Philadelphia regional theater, with credits in Arcadia at the Wilma Theater, Oleanna at Walnut Street Theatre and The Laramie Project at Philadelphia Theatre Company. These productions gave her experience with contrasting forms of dramatic writing before recurring television parts became central to her public profile. The stage remained a place to develop a complete performance through rehearsal and sustained engagement with a text.

The entry point

Goodman Theatre's records identify Siff as Nora in Rebecca Gilman's Dollhouse, directed by Robert Falls, in 2005. She returned as Catherine in Richard Nelson's Frank's Home in 2006. Her New York credits also included The Ruby Sunrise at the Public Theater. The Goodman biography, dated December 2006, already listed Mad Men among her forthcoming screen projects. That record captures a transition between a substantial regional and New York theater career and the television exposure that would introduce her to a much larger audience.

Screen identity and style

Mad Men introduced Siff as department-store executive Rachel Menken in its first season. Sons of Anarchy then cast her as Tara Knowles, a doctor and the former high-school sweetheart of Jax Teller. The role placed her within the personal relationships surrounding the motorcycle-club drama, and she received two Critics' Choice nominations for her work on the series. Billions offered another extended role as Wendy Rhoades, a psychiatrist and performance coach working amid competing personal and professional loyalties. Siff remained part of that series through its seven-season run.

Collaborations and patterns

Film has provided opportunities for a different scale of storytelling. In Elisabeth Subrin's A Woman, A Part, she plays Anna Baskin, an exhausted television actress who leaves Los Angeles and returns to New York in an effort to rethink her life. The producer's synopsis centers on artistic identity and the difficulty of changing an established career. Siff's other films include Concussion, The Sweet Life, The Fifth Wave, One Percent More Humid and The Short History of the Long Road. These projects extend her screen work beyond the recurring relationships of a long-running series.

Era reflection

Her later theater work includes A Lie of the Mind at the New Group, directed by Ethan Hawke, and Curse of the Starving Class at Signature Theatre. At Theatre for a New Audience she has appeared in Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew. In 2023 she played Lady Torrance in the company's production of Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending, directed by Erica Schmidt, opposite Pico Alexander as Val. The production's story of two outsiders seeking escape offered another substantial dramatic partnership within her continuing stage career.

Legacy and rediscovery

The gallery records three different public occasions rather than presenting alternate crops of one photograph: the January 2009 premiere of Push, the March 2012 FX advertising upfront and the July 2013 Sons of Anarchy presentation at San Diego Comic-Con. Anthony Citrano, Joella Marano and Gage Skidmore made the respective photographs, each with a retained Creative Commons attribution. The images accompany a career that connects stage ensembles, film productions and sustained television characters, while keeping those different performances and their production histories distinct.

Selected screen roles

• Mad Men: Rachel Menken — 2007-2015
• Sons of Anarchy: Tara Knowles — 2008-2013
• Billions: Wendy Rhoades — 2016-2023
• A Woman, A Part: Anna Baskin — 2016

A career in pictures

Three separate film-premiere and television-event photographs from 2009, 2012 and 2013, with creator and license records.

FX upfront (2012)

Television event

Joella Marano photograph from the FX Ad Sales Upfront, March 28, 2012.

Push premiere (2009)

Film premiere

Anthony Citrano photograph at the Mann Theater in Westwood, January 29, 2009.

Sons of Anarchy at Comic-Con (2013)

Convention appearance

Gage Skidmore photograph at San Diego Comic-Con, July 21, 2013.

Rewatch notes

• Played Rachel Menken, Tara Knowles and Wendy Rhoades in three major television dramas.
• Trained at Bryn Mawr College and NYU Tisch.
• Played Lady Torrance in Orpheus Descending in 2023.