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Like mother, like daughter.
Mekia Cox recently sat down with PEOPLE to discuss season 8 of The Rookie and her character Nyla Harper. The beloved detective has gone through many seasons of life since Cox, 44, joined the series in 2019, and she says that viewers can expect to see more of her personal life this season.
“There’s a little bit of twinge of her starting to miss her high stakes, old undercover life a little bit,” the actress shares. “She kind of tries to get back there a little bit and into that element.”
“You get to see her daughter again, both daughters again — one also being my daughter in real life,” she then reveals of her youngest. “Personally, that’s also wonderful.”
Like her character, Cox is a mom to two daughters, whom she shares with husband Britt Leach. Their youngest daughter’s role on the ABC police procedural goes back to before she was born, with her pregnancy — and experience having a home birth — being written into her storyline in season 5.
Raymond Liu/ABC via Getty
In an Instagram post featuring a photo of her in labor shared in May 2022, Cox praised the show’s creator Alexi Hawley and the team for helping her tell her story on screen.
“My real home birth. ☺️♥️ Much thnx to ‘my birthing team’ for peacefully bringing my child into this world,” she wrote in the caption. “And thnx to @alexihawley and the Rookie writers for depicting a home birth on tv and helping to normalize such a beautiful experience. @therookieabc 🙏🏾”
Cox says that it is those intimate and relatable moments that she thinks keep fans so strongly connected to the cast and the series as a whole.
“The generational thing is always interesting to me,” she notes. “I remember having a family of women come up to me — it was the grandma, the mom and the daughter — and they were like, ‘We all watch this show. We watch this show together.’ ”
“To be able to see it span different generations like that is really kind of wonderful, and to know that like it’s a kind of a family show,” Cox continues. “A lot of families are like, ‘That’s the one time we’re able to sit down together and watch something.’ ”
That family-bonding is just as prevalent off-camera for Cox, as well, as she often brings both her daughters to hang out on set while she works. In June 2024, she even took to Instagram to share some sweet snaps from one of their visits.
“Behind the scenes with my 2 little loves! 👧🏽👧🏽❤️ #BTS #TheRookie,” she captioned it, showing the girls smiling in a director’s chair and posing with her while she wore Harper’s uniform.
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New episodes of The Rookie air Mondays on ABC and are available to stream on Hulu the following day.
