Jill Hennessy

This native of Edmonton, Alberta has a mix of ancestry from Irish, Italian, Swedish, French and Ukranian. She has a twin sister named Jacqueline is a professional actress. Jill was able to learn various languages, including Italian, French, Spanish when she was growing older. As a teenager, she started to get intrigued by acting. In Toronto the city she was born, she began her acting career in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. She played an escort in the show with the twins of her. After studying improv with Deb Kimmet, who was a student at Second City, she began her acting career in Toronto. A few years later, she moved into New York and signed a deal for the role of assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid on the long run of the hit show, Law & Order. The three years she spent on the show and beyond, she spent her time acting in feature films such as RoboCop 3 (1993), Ron Howard's The Paper (1994), as well as I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). For the next few years she became a part of a number of forgettable movies However, in 1999, she landed her first starring role on the television miniseries uremberg opposite Alec Baldwin. Major roles in productions including Autumn in New York and Exit Wounds followed. Her first lead role was on the NBC crime show Crossing Jordan in 2001. In 2007, she won the Gracie Allen Award for "Outstanding female character in a drama" to honor her role on the show. The actress got married to another actor Paolo Mastropietro in 2000. They have two children. In 2007, she was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame in 2007.