Annie Wersching, Actress in ‘Bosch,’ ‘24,’ ‘Runaways,’ Dies at 45
Annie Wersching, an actress known for her roles in the TV dramas Bosch and 24, as well as her portrayal of Leslie Dean, the mother of the alien superhero Karolina in Marvel’s Runaways, has died. She was 45.
Wersching died of cancer Sunday morning in Los Angeles, a representative for the actress told The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband Stephen Full remembered his wife and mother of their three children in a statement.
“There is a gaping hole in the soul of this family today. But she left us the tools to fulfill it,” he said. “She found wonder in the simplest moment. She didn’t need music to dance. She taught us not to wait for adventure to find you. ‘Go find it. It’s everywhere.’ And we find it.”
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“As I drove our boys, the true loves of her life, down the winding driveway and street, she yelled BYE! until we were out of earshot and into the world,” he continued. “I can still hear the bell ringing. Hello my friend. “I love you family…”
Wersching, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, most recently had a number of recurring roles on Star Trek: Picard, playing the Borg Queen, as well as The Rookie, where she appeared as Rosalind Dyer, an assassin who escapes from prison.
She previously had starring roles in multiple seasons of 24, Bosch and Marvel’s Runaways. On the 24th, Wersching portrayed Renee Walker, an FBI Special Agent in the Washington Field Office who works with Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer on the 7th and 8th, set in the series’ seventh and eighth seasons. (Read her colleagues’ tributes here.)
In Bosch, the actress portrayed Julia Brasher, a rookie cop in the LAPD’s Hollywood division, whose paths cross professionally and personally with Harry Bosch in the first two seasons of the series, before returning for the seventh series in 2021. Between 2019 and 2021, Wersching starred in Marvel’s Runaways and in more than 30 episodes over three seasons of the Hulu series, he portrayed half-alien mother Karolina in a villain-turned-ally role that initially pits Leslie Dean against her daughter’s group of teenage superhero friends.
Her longest running role would be as television producer Amelia Joffe in 80 episodes of the daytime series General Hospital, along with multi-episode arcs on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries – as the mother of lead vampires Paul Wesley and Ian Somerholder, Stefan and Damon. — and NBC’s Timeless as Emma Whitmore, a time traveler and pilot who fakes her death and gets stuck in time.
During her career, she appeared in a number of guest roles on popular shows such as Angel, Boston Legal, Charmed, Cold Case, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Frasier, Hawaii Five-0, NCIS, Rizzoli and Isles, and Supernatural.
In 2013, she reunited in a one-off episode with several 24 co-stars, including Sutherland, for an episode of his FOX series Touch. She also reunited with Supernatural showrunner Eric Kripke for a two-episode arc on his NBC series Revolution, as the former love interest of Billy Burke’s character.
While Wersching has worked mostly in television, she has done voice work for video games, most recently in Bioware’s 2019 online action RPG Anthem. However, she is best known for her voice work in The Last of Us as Tess, the apocalypse survivor and smuggling partner of Naughty Dog’s main character Joel Miller.
Wersching was born and raised in St. Louis, she grew up in musical theater and competitive Irish dancing before attending Millikin University where she graduated in 1999 with a BFA in musical theater. Prior to touring with Anything Goes and A Christmas Carol, she lived in Chicago and eventually performed at prominent theaters and festivals, including Chicago’s Victory Gardens, Marriott Lincolnshire, and the Utah Shakespearean Festival.
In 2001, she moved to Los Angeles where she continued her run as a stage actress in the revival of Do I Hear A Waltz? at the Pasadena Playhouse before making her first TV appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise.
