Profile of Jessica Steen on Famous Like Me

Jessica Steen (born December 19, 1965 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian movie and television actress, noted for her roles in Homefront, Earth 2, Armageddon, NCIS and Stargate SG-1.

Biography

At age 8, she received her first role in the Canadian children's television series, The Sunrunners. Her father was a film director and her mother, Joanna Noyes, was an actor; this parentage, unsurprisingly, lead to Steen being bitten by the so-called "acting bug".

In 1986, she portrayed Tracy Gordon, the daughter of a character portrayed by Lindsay Wagner, who was coincidentally a childhood idol of Steen's.

In 1987, she was the only female regular on the syndicated series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, which only lasted one year, For her performance in the Captain Power episode, "Judgment", she was nominated for the Gemini Award in the "Best Performance by a Lead Actress in a Continuing Dramatic Role" category in 1988.

Residing in Toronto, she garnered roles on Canadian series until 1989, when she elected to move to New York, although spending a large bulk of her time between California and Canada.

A five-week stint in 1991 on the soap opera Loving playing Patricia Alden Sowolsky Hartman McKenzie lead to her being cast in the series Homefront, where she portrayed a union organizer named Linda Metcalf in the post-World War II setting.

In 1994, she won the "Best Actress" Gemini Award for her portrayal of Nora in the TV movie, Small Gifts.

She became further well known through her portrayal of Dr. Julia Heller, a genetically enhanced doctor, in the NBC science fiction series Earth 2. While the show was cancelled in 1995, the hype brought by the show allowed Steen to land guest appearances on similar series, including The Outer Limits, ER, Murder One, The Pretender, The Practice, Monk and Touched by an Angel.

In 1997, Jessica received the role of District Attorney Elizabeth Gardner in the movie Trial & Error, working with Jeff Daniels and Michael Richards. She prepared for the role with the help of a friend who was going through law school and watching the closing arguments of Marcia Clark during the O.J. Simpson trial.

In 2004, she was cast in the role of Dr. Elizabeth Weir in the season seven finale of Stargate SG-1 entitled "The Lost City". For reasons not officially specified, she did not reprise the role of Weir in the eighth season SG-1 episode "New Order" or in the spin-off, Stargate Atlantis. The role went to another Canadian actress Torri Higginson, best known for her work in TekWar, in spite of the fact that Steen was paid to not appear in any other roles while MGM deliberated over greenlighting the spin-off.

Jessica also plays a recurring character in the CBS crime drama NCIS, that of Special Agent Paula Cassidy.

Outside of acting, Steen is an environmentalist and animal rights supporter. She supports David Suzuki, The World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee, amongst others.

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