Madeleine Coghlan’s career doesn’t read like a straight highway. It’s more like those city streets where every block has a different smell—fresh bread, hot asphalt, somebody’s bad decisions—and you keep walking anyway because the night is young and you’re curious what’s around the next corner.
She’s one of those performers who’s spent years building a résumé the way some people build a bruise: quietly, repeatedly, and with a stubborn kind of pride. Not the “look at me” kind of acting life. More like the “I’ll be here, I’ll do the work, and sooner or later you’ll remember my face” kind.
The early gears: learning rhythm before “career”
Before the heavier, moodier work she’s now associated with, Coghlan cut her teeth in youth-oriented comedy and performance spaces—places where timing matters more than ego, and where you learn fast that the camera loves the honest moment, not the perfect one. Some early coverage places her in Radio Disney-era programming tied to sketch/improv youth content (including Maddy & Chase)—the kind of training ground that teaches you how to land a joke, take direction, and keep going when your brain blanks out mid-sentence because you’re still a human being.
And that matters, because later on—when the roles get darker, when the stories stop being cute and start being sharp—those early reps still show. There’s a steadiness underneath the intensity.
Horror as a calling card: Holidays (2016)
Some actors “try” horror. Others understand it: the pacing, the dread, the little half-second delay that makes a moment crawl under your skin. Coghlan shows up in the horror anthology film Holidays (2016), specifically in the “Valentine’s Day” segment.
Anthology horror is a weird gig. You don’t get hours to build a character; you get minutes. It’s acting in a pressure cooker—walk in, set a temperature, make the room feel different. Even when a segment is short, you can still leave a fingerprint. That’s the job.
The real heat: We Burn Like This (2021)
Then comes We Burn Like This—the kind of film that doesn’t flirt with discomfort, it marries it and moves into a small apartment where the walls are thin and the past is loud. Coghlan plays the lead in this indie drama-horror hybrid centered on intergenerational trauma and antisemitism. This is where her work starts to feel less like “credits” and more like a statement. Lead roles in independent films are rarely glamorous. The pay is smaller, the days are longer, and you can’t hide behind spectacle. If the performance doesn’t hold, the whole thing collapses.
But that’s also where actors like her tend to shine—when there’s nowhere to run except straight through the scene. We Burn Like This isn’t about looking cool. It’s about carrying weight: fear that isn’t flashy, dread that doesn’t come with orchestral cues, the kind of tension that sits in a family like a second couch nobody asked for.
TV work: the recurring thread on The Rookie
And then—network TV. A different arena, different rules. Faster pace, sharper marks, continuity that stretches like a rubber band.
Coghlan appears on ABC’s The Rookie as Abigail Tierney (connected to Henry Nolan’s storyline).
If indie film is a long midnight confession, network TV is a bright room with a clock on the wall. You still have to tell the truth—just faster, cleaner, and with forty people waiting on you to hit your line so they can move the camera and make the day.
It’s a particular kind of skill to move between those worlds without losing your voice: to go from an intimate indie psychological burn to the crisp efficiency of network storytelling. Some actors get swallowed by one side or the other. The interesting ones learn to breathe in both atmospheres.
Behind the camera: Defibrillator and the need to build your own doors
Coghlan also steps into writing/directing territory, including her short Defibrillator (where she’s credited as a creative force as well as appearing on camera).
That move—creating your own material—usually isn’t about vanity. It’s about control. It’s about not waiting around for the phone to ring with the “perfect role” that never shows up. It’s the artist’s version of keeping a spare key: you make sure you can still get inside your own house.
What’s next: Puppet (reported 2025 casting)
More recently, trade/genre coverage has reported Coghlan being cast in the psychological horror film Puppet, directed by Nick Peterson.
If that project lands the way psychological horror can land—tight, unnerving, character-driven—it fits the lane she’s been carving: stories where the fear isn’t just a monster in the corner, but something closer, something personal, something that knows your name.
The shape of it
If you’re looking for the headline version, it’s easy: horror anthology credit, a lead in an indie feature with real teeth, recurring network TV, and a push into writing/directing.
But the real story is tone.
Coghlan’s career has the feel of someone who kept showing up—kept taking swings—kept getting better in public and in private. The kind of trajectory that doesn’t “arrive” with fireworks, but with accumulation. The audience slowly realizing: oh. Her. She’s good.
And that’s the best kind of recognition anyway—the kind you earn, not the kind you’re handed.
