Chicago P.D.'s Tracy Spiridakos Gets Only Days To Memorize New Scripts

Tracy Spiridakos made the jump to series regular on "Chicago P.D." after Sophia Bush exited the show (via The Hollywood Reporter), and since then, she has arguably become a fan-favorite amongst the "One Chicago" fan base. While she might make it look easy to some, her efforts to bring Haley Upton to life in every entry are quite the opposite, with the actress sometimes not having much prep time with the writing beforehand.

Since 2007, Hayley Upton has been a prolific player when it comes to the small screen appearing in a vast array of big-name titles like "Supernatural," "The L Word," "Psych," "Episodes," "Bates Motel," and "Macguyver." In 2012, Spiridakos took her career to the next level, starring in the J.J. Abrams-produced dystopian sci-fi series "Revolution," showing the world she has what it takes to headline a title in NBC's lineup. While she has many impressive credits overall (via IMDb), her most notorious gig, many would argue, would be her time serving on the CPD Intelligence Unit in the network's popular crime drama "Chicago P.D." The actress began playing Detective Hayley Upton as a recurring character in season 4 before getting upgraded to a bigger role for the fifth season.

In the show, Upton is sometimes forced to make a move with little preparation, yet she somehow manages more often than not to come out on top. It seems Spiridakos has that in common with her "Chicago P.D." character, as the actress doesn't have much of a gap between receiving the scripts and the cameras rolling.

During an interview, Tracy Spiridakos talked about the NBC series and her character, detective Hayley Upton in great detail. During the eye-opening affair, the actress revealed some interesting information regarding the script-to-screen process for each iteration of the crime drama, as well as her exemplary skills at getting a script down rather fast. "Most of the time, we get the scripts usually two days before we start shooting," the "Chicago P.D." star said in an interview with Build Series (via YouTube). "And then we have a table read the day before, and then we go into it."

Despite the less-than-stellar time crunch, Spiridakos has overcome it all to maintain her status as an aforementioned fan-favorite and has passed the 100-episode mark on the show, which is impressive considering she came in during the fourth run. The excellent efforts of Spiridakos and everyone else involved have helped the crime drama attain an outstanding audience score on Rotten Tomatoes with tons of top-rated episodes on IMDb. The show continued to dominate years later as it was one of the most-watched scripted series from September 2021 to May 2022 (via Variety).

There is no denying that it isn't easy bringing any of the "One Chicago" shows to life, and given how loyal the "Chicago P.D." fans have been over the years, it seems they most assuredly appreciate the lengths Tracy Spiridakos and everyone else on the series go to in order to make it always entertaining from start to finish.