Jessalyn Gilsig Biography

NAME: Jessalyn Sarah Gilsig

OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Theater Actress, Television Actress

BIRTH DATE: November 30, 1971 (Age: 40)

EDUCATION: McGill University, American Repertory Theatre's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University

PLACE OF BIRTH: Montreal, Canada

Actress. Born Jessalyn Sarah Gilsig on November 30, 1971, in Montreal, Canada, to mother Clare, a translator and writer, and father Toby Gilsig, an engineer. Gilsig's entrance into the world of show business came early when, at the age of 12, she was hired to do voice work for Masquerade, a program produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

A trained theater actress, Gilsig stayed close to home for college, attending McGill University in Montreal, where she earned a degree in English in 1993. There, she also cut her teeth on a number of stage productions. Her early experiences in theater didn't come without a case of the nerves, however: "I remember staring at a sign-up sheet for auditions for a theatrical version of Wuthering Heights," she later recalled. "I was so scared, but I finally signed up."

A graduate of Montreal's McGill University, Gilsig headed south to Massachusetts where she excelled in the Harvard University-sponsored Institute of Advanced Theater Training at the American Repertory Theatre (ART). Completing her two-year course in 1995, the actress headed to NYC, but soon returned to Cambridge when the theater bucked policy and hired the actress for their professional theater though she was a new graduate. With ART she starred as Miranda in "The Tempest" (1995) and was featured in Moliere's "Tartuffe" (1996), and evinced a well-rounded spirit of both feminine nurturing and feminist strength in her portrayals. Returning to Manhattan, she was featured on stage in the Primary Stages production "Mere Mortals and Others" (1997) and co-starred in 1998's "Gun-Shy", a presentation at Playwrights Horizons. 1998 also saw her take on a lead voice role in the animated feature "Quest for Camelot", playing a young female hero, a girl who dreams of following in the footsteps of her father and serving as a noble knight of King Arthur's court.