Character
Lena Mae Riggi
Lena Mae Riggi in The Pacific (2010), played by Annie Parisse.
Lena Mae Riggi is a sergeant in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, stationed stateside and entirely unimpressed by celebrity. She runs her post with brisk professionalism, unbothered that the famous John Basilone has come through camp. Direct, dry, and self-possessed, she treats him like any other Marine until he proves otherwise.
Parisse plays her without a trace of star-struck softness, which is exactly the point: the show has spent hours building Basilone into a legend, and she simply refuses to see him that way. Her flatness is the joke and the appeal, a woman whose competence and composure make his charm actually have to work for something.
Played by
Appears in
The Pacific2010