Amy Aquino

Aquino was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, to Adele Frances (née Mesiti) and Salvatore Aquino. She first acted in junior high school productions. At Harvard University she was pre-med, majoring in biology. In her final year, she realised she was spending more time acting than studying and so left to travel to New York to take acting classes, while working at a law firm. She stayed there for three years without landing any acting jobs, before traveling on a recommendation to Minneapolis, where she gained her first roles. In 1986, after two years of rejections, she enrolled at Yale University School of Drama, where she studied three years.

She joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1987 and was named the co-secretary-treasurer on September 24, 2009. She was elected for a second term in 2011, without opposition, and after being elected the first secretary-treasurer of the newly merged SAG-AFTRA served until August 2015. She had previously served two terms as first vice president of the Screen Actors Guild.

After Yale, Aquino spent the next five years based in New York. While there she appeared with Kevin Spacey at Playwrights Horizons and joined the Circle Repertory Company. She appeared in Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, which won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1989. Also that year, Aquino appeared in both Moonstruck (as Loretta's hairdresser) and Working Girl (as Melanie Griffith's secretary at the end of the film), her first film roles.

In 1991, she was cast as one of the leads in the CBS series Brooklyn Bridge. After the show was renewed for a second season, Aquino moved to California to be closer to where it was being filmed. After moving, she has primarily been in television roles, including ER and Everybody Loves Raymond.

In 1995, Aquino was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for portraying Dr. Joanna "Joey" Diamond in Picket Fences.

Aquino met Drew McCoy after moving to California. In 1995, they were married at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan. Together they purchased the Villa Royale, an inn in Palm Springs, California, which they renovated over a two-year period.

In 2005, she appeared in another play of Wasserstein's, Third, in the off-Broadway production at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Aquino also appeared off-Broadway, at the 59E59 Theaters, in Secrets of the Trade by Jonathan Tolins.

In 2013, Aquino was cast as the witch Donna in the season 2 of Being Human. Later that year, Aquino was cast in the ABC Television pilot Divorce: A Love Story; however, the role was recast when the producers decided that she looked too young to play the mother of Jason Jones, who was portrayed by an actor 16 years younger than she. Aquino played college President Dalley in The Lazarus Effect (2015), co-starring Sarah Bolger, Mark Duplass, and Olivia Wilde.

Aquino currently stars in Amazon Studios' television series Bosch as Lieutenant Grace Billets, commanding officer of LAPD Homicide. The series was renewed for a seventh and final season on February 13, 2020.