Jill Hennessy

This resident from Edmonton, Alberta has a diverse ancestry spanning Irish, Italian, Swedish, French and Ukranian. Jacqueline is her twin sister, and is an actor. Jill was fluent in many languages throughout her childhood. This included Italian, French, and Spanish. After the age of 12, she became fascinated by acting. At the age of 12, in Toronto She began acting professionally as an actress in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. She played an escort with her twin sister. After a course in improv taught by Deb Kimmet at Second City, she began her acting career in Toronto. A few years later, she made the move to New York and signed a contract to play Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid on the long running hit series, Law & Order. In the course of her three-year run in the show, she was also acting in feature films such as RoboCop 3 (1993), Ron Howard's The Paper (1994), and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). Over the next couple of years she landed gigs in several forgettable films and in 1999, she landed her first starring role in the micro-series uremberg with Alec Baldwin. Autumn in New York, Exit Wounds and other major productions would follow. She landed the leading role in Crossing Jordan, the NBC police drama Crossing Jordan in 2001. In 2007, she was awarded the Gracie Allen Award for "Outstanding female actor in a drama" to honor her performance on the show. In 2000, she married the actor who played her Paolo Mastropietro. Together, they have two children. She was honored in 2007 with a place on Canada's Walk of Fame.