Jill Hennessy

Her family is from Edmonton, a city with a mix of Irish, Italian and Swedish heritage, and also French Ukrainian, French and Swedish. Her twin sister, Jacqueline, is an actress too. Jill was fluent in many languages when she was growing up. This comprised Italian, French, and Spanish. When she was twelve years old, Jill became interested with acting. At the age of 12, in Toronto the city she was born, she began acting professionally as an actress in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. She played an escort with their twin sisters. After studying improv with Deb Kimmet from Second City, she began her acting career in Toronto. After moving to New York, Claire signed the two-year contract for Law & Order to be the Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid. Over the 3 years she spent in New York where she was a part of movies with a feature-length story, including RoboCop 3 (1993), Ron Howard's The Paper (1996) and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). The years following, she landed roles in several forgettable films. But in 1999, she secured a leading role in the miniseries uremberg together with Alec Baldwin. Major roles in productions such as Autumn in New York and Exit Wounds followed. Her first lead role was of the NBC police drama Crossing Jordan in 2001. In 2007, she received the Gracie Allen Award for "Outstanding female leading actress in a drama series" for her work on the series. In 2000, she was married to another actor Paolo Mastropietro. The couple has two children. In 2007 she was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame.