‘The Blacklist’ Season 9: Who is Aida Turturro — the Actor Who Plays Heddie Hawkins?
The Blacklist Season 9 has a pretty different cast than when the series first started. Although some of the original characters like Raymond Reddington, Ressler, Aram, and Cooper remain, Liz Keen was killed off prior to this season. It’s always nice to see the familiar faces of Red’s associates from the past. Season 9 brought back Heddie Hawkins, who was first introduced in the episode “Smokey Putnam.” Here’s everything you need to know about Aida Turturro, the actor who plays Heddie.
Aida Turturro plays Heddie Hawkins in ‘The Blacklist’
Turturro’s character Heddie was first introduced in the season 5 premiere titled “Smokey Putnam.” This season began with Red’s criminal empire in shambles. He is completely broke and decides to go after blacklister and alleged embezzler Smokey Putnam.
Heddie Hawkins is an accountant working for major carnivals with Putnam. Together the pair embezzled $2,000,000, but Heddie ended up getting caught. Red figures out a way to free Heddie from prison and afterward offers her a job (along with Putnam. The pair become the first new members of Red’s new criminal empire. As of The Blacklist Season 9, Heddie is still in league with Red.
Here’s where you’ve seen Aida Turturro before
Turturro has had a long and illustrious acting career. Throughout the 1990s she made appearances in a whole slew of TV shows. Viewers may have spotted Turturro in The Wright Verdicts, Law & Order, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and The Practice, according to IMDb.
However, Turturro is probably most famous for portraying Janice Soprano in the HBO series The Sopranos, from 1999-2007. The popular series follows Tony Soprano, an Italian-American mobster living in New Jersey. Turturro’s character Janice is Tony’s older sister. Janice’s relationship with Tony is often strained. She has very little work ethic and Tony still holds some resentment toward her for abandoning the family.
Turturro was also close friends with her Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini. The pair appeared together in the feature films Angie, Fallen, and Romance & Cigarettes, as well as A Streetcar Named Desire, IMDb states. Following Gandolfini’s death in 2013, Turturro told Hollywood Life, “I think that to me, personally, I have a lot of love for him – I have my own memories. The beautiful thing is, he had a very, very, huge incredible soul and it just went on forever.”
Heddie Hawkins returns in ‘The Blacklist’ Season 9
Turturro returned as Heddie in The Blacklist Season 9 Episode 4 titled “The Avenging Angel.” Her role in this episode wasn’t a big one, but fans of Turturro need not fear. Heddie will be back when the show returns from the February break.
Season 9 Episode 10 will air on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. EST. The episode is titled “Arcane Wireless” and the plot synopsis on IMDb reads, “Red races against the clock to get a colleague out of trouble.” Rotten Tomatoes lists Turturro as a guest star in this episode, so it’s possible she may be the colleague in danger. Hopefully Red can save her in time.
RELATED: ‘The Blacklist’ Season 9 Will Air on a New Night in 2022
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