General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20265 min read

Meredith Eaton

Meredith Eaton (born 1974) is an American actress and former clinical-psychology professional, born and raised on the south shore of Long Island, New York, known for the recurring roles of attorney Bethany Horowitz on Boston Legal and Carol Wilson on NCIS, and for the starring role of Matilda "Matty" Webber on the reboot of MacGyver (2016–2021).¹^•² She began acting only in adulthood, after a casting call for the film Unconditional Love, while pursuing a psychology career that she later combined with acting work.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Born	1974, Long Island, New York; birth name Meredith Hope Eaton³^•⁵
Height	4'2", or 4'3" with shoes³
Screen debut	Unconditional Love (2002), won the role from an open casting call against about 2,000 other applicants³
Signature TV roles	Emily Resnick on Family Law; Bethany Horowitz on Boston Legal (18 episodes, 2006–2008); Matty Webber on MacGyver (2016–2021); Carol Wilson on NCIS³^•²
Other career	Clinical psychology; therapist for United Cerebral Palsy and in a locked psychiatric unit in New York⁴
Education	Adelphi University, undergraduate grade point average of 4.0; later earned a master's degree³
Also known as	Meredith Eaton-Gilden²

Education and psychology career

Eaton pursued psychology before acting. She attended Adelphi University, where she earned a perfect 4.0 grade point average, later completed a master's degree, and was accepted into a doctoral program at the time of her screen debut.³

Her clinical work concentrated on people with disabilities and on mental illness. In high school and through college she worked with people who had Down syndrome at AHRC, a New York agency; after college she was hired at United Cerebral Palsy as a program administrator and did some therapy there. She has described the psychology career as interwoven with her acting career, serving as her fallback between acting jobs.⁴

The connection to United Cerebral Palsy runs in the family. Her grandmother, Nina Eaton, helped to found the organization in the 1940s after her son, Meredith's father, was born with cerebral palsy; today UCP affiliates serve more than 170,000 children and adults with disabilities and their families every day.⁴

After Family Law was canceled and acting work dried up, Eaton returned to clinical work for practical reasons. She spent a year and a half as a therapist in a locked psychiatric unit working with people who were criminally insane, leaving after being assaulted several times, and then worked for two years doing individual and group crisis intervention and family therapy, leaving again to join Boston Legal.⁴

Unconditional Love and Family Law

Eaton's acting career began with an open casting call for Unconditional Love (2002), a comic murder-mystery directed by Paul Haggis and starring Kathy Bates as Grace, Dan Aykroyd as her husband, and Rupert Everett as the pop star's secret lover. Eaton, then standing 4'2" (4'3" with shoes), beat out about 2,000 other applicants for the role of Grace's aggressive, anxiety-ridden daughter-in-law.³

Haggis liked the performance enough to write a part for her on television. He cast her as the ultra-aggressive lawyer Emily Resnick on Family Law (CBS, 1999–2002), a role TV Insider describes as having been written just for her.³ TVmaze lists three episodes of Family Law as her starring credit, in seasons 2001 and 2002.² According to IMDb, before Boston Legal this was the role she was best known for.¹

Guest roles and Boston Legal

After Family Law ended, Eaton built a run of guest appearances on established prime-time series: NYPD Blue (as Stella Kensington), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (as Melanie Grace), Dharma & Greg (as Kate), and House (as Maddy Ralphean).³^•⁶

Bethany Horowitz. On Boston Legal (ABC, 2004–2008) she played Bethany Horowitz, a feisty lawyer nicknamed "The Badger" for her habit of biting people she dislikes, who enters a politically incorrect romance with Denny Crane, played by William Shatner.³ The role ran for 18 episodes across 2006–2008.² David E. Kelley, the show's creator, wrote the Bethany Horowitz part specifically for Eaton after seeing her in Unconditional Love.⁷ For the role she was named one of Yahoo! TV's top "Dramatic Debuts" of Fall 2006 and earned a "Must Watch" pick from Entertainment Weekly.¹

MacGyver and NCIS

Eaton's most sustained television work came as Matilda "Matty" Webber on MacGyver, the CBS reboot that began in 2016. She appears in the series as a starring cast member, with TVmaze crediting her for 77 to 82 episodes through the fifth and final season in 2021.²^•¹ In a 2017 interview, Matty was described as one of the show's constant scene-stealers, intense and hilarious, and carrying one of the series' central mysteries through her history with the character Jack Dalton.⁸

Her other recurring role is Carol Wilson on NCIS, a guest-starring part spanning five episodes from 2003 through 2025, including episode 19x13 "The Helpers" (February 28, 2022), which TV Insider's recap called the show's best episode of that season, and episode 22x12 "Fun and Games" (February 10, 2025).²^•³ She also guest starred as Carol Wilson on NCIS: New Orleans in 2014.²

Beyond these series, her credits include Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (as Jocelyn Miller, 2008), Without a Trace, Veronica Mars (2014), Battle Creek (2015, as Meredith Oberling), and Lopez vs Lopez (2022, as a guest star in the "Medical Alert" episode).³^•² Film work includes Unconditional Love (2002, as Maudey Beasley), Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), Fun Size, Paranormal Activity 5: The Marked Ones, and Paranoia (2013, as Hospital Nurse #2), plus a voice-acting credit on The Internship.¹^•⁵ She also appeared as herself in the 2006 documentary Standing Tall at Auschwitz.³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 2000s onward › Surnames Do to E

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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