Maahra Hill’s success is a testament to dreams deferred.
Though she dominates screens as Special Agent Marisa Clark on NBC’s hit mystery crime drama The Irrational week by week today, the actress took a winding path to the small screen, discovering what she wanted most at every stage of life before eventually landing on network television stardom.
Hill caught the acting bug at an early age, winning an Illinois state championship in dramatic interpretation in high school and later participating in mask and gavel and Black theater workshops during college. But Hill’s passion for the stage took a backburner as she moved through college and into the professional workforce. “I just treated it like a hobby,” she said of her turn in theater. “It was something fun to do, but I never really took it seriously. I didn’t feel like it was a realistic career pursuit.”
Hill soon became an optician, worked for a consulting firm, and engrained herself into corporate America, committing to doing things “the right way.” But when motherhood became a part of her story, her perspective was forever shifted.
“I had my daughter and my heart just burst open,” Hill says. “All these things that I love came back rushing in and I realized that I actually loved acting. I thought, maybe I could do it because the things I’d been doing so far, I was not that crazy about.”
When her daughter turned three, Hill packed up their lives and relocated to Los Angeles to finally give acting a real shot. But she quickly realized that juggling her rediscovered dream and motherhood involved more sacrifice than she was willing to make.m“I just kind of started tipping my toe in a little bit, but found that I still preferred motherhood,” she says. “Once she was in school, I wanted to be there to pick her up, drop her off, make her dinner, hear the stories of her day, draw her a bath. I didn’t want to be on set for 12 or 14 hours. I just wanted to be there with her.”
In 2016, Hill knew her time had come. “So I started to focus and got a manager,” she explains. She jumped right into the deep end the following year, testing that pilot season and soon landing guest roles on hit series like How to Get Away with Murder and Black-ish. But her breakout role came in 2021 with the lead role on OWN’s hit courtroom drama Delilah. As the show’s titular character – a legal maven who took a decade-long step back in the prime of her career to make motherhood her top priority, now returning to the courtroom to take cases the biggest firms overlook – Hill expertly filled a role that mirrored parts of her own lived experience.
Despite its untimely cancellation after just one 8-episode season, Delilah put Hill in position for her biggest role to date. She credits the vision of Casting Director Kim Coleman with “making every dream [she’s] had in this industry come true,” from Delilah Connoly’s bold court cases to Marisa Clark’s murder mysteries on NBC’s hit crime drama, The Irrational.
When the script came her way, Hill was immediately fascinated by its focus on behavioral psychology and the way it may open audiences’ eyes to bits of science they may not have known before.
“The impact that the show would potentially have on audiences made me very hopeful to be a part of it,” she shares. “It’s an opportunity to understand yourself and other people’s behavior a bit more, which creates this powerful opportunity for understanding.”
Beyond the show’s central themes, the character of Marisa gripped Hill due to her bold personality, integrity, and willingness to step out of her comfort zone simply to discover what is on the other side.
“The [first] season starts with her getting a divorce. She made that decision because of what she felt she needed for herself,” Hill says. “I think that she just got married so young and wanted to find out more about who she was without her husband, Alec Mercer.”
Led by veteran actor Jesse L. Martin, The Irrational became a breakout hit in 2023 during the SAG-AFTRA strikes, captivating audiences through uncertain times for scripted television and securing a second season before its finale even aired – a huge feat for a new show even under ideal industry circumstances. Especially one with a Black leading cast on network television.
“I think we all recognize that there are three people of color leading this show and that the amount of success that it’s had has been – it’s actually not shocking because it’s just a show,” Hill says. “We happen to be people of color, and we want people to understand this story is not unique to us being people of color.”
“It’s really important to see yourself reflected, and it’s also important to have our stories told and to understand that our stories are not dissimilar to any other person’s,” Hill continues. “There are things that make us stand out. I love my people. There are so many things that are special and unique and powerful and resilient and courageous about us. But we are also human beings just like everyone else, and we tell stories just like everyone else.”
“I think it would be beneficial to the industry at large to understand that the human story encompasses every single human being, and people of color are a part of that story,” she says. “If you don’t tell that story with us, the story’s not complete.”
With its midseason finale having aired earlier this month and the show slated to return January 7, and fans clamoring for more from Alec, Marisa, Kylie and the rest of the characters, Hill is excited for audiences to get a better understanding of their motivations and the unique, mature writing of the show’s storylines. For fans and for Hill, the explosive success of the show is a glimmer of hope that network dramas – particularly those led by Black casts – are making a return to favor.
“For us to have been hopefully some kind of rare hope for a potential comeback for broadcast television, I felt was really exciting,” Hill says. “It’s not lost on me in this industry at this time, what a blessing this is.”
