When Cowgirls In Style asked Jessica Steen how she related to Lisa Stillman, she thanked the fans first. “We are still ‘Heartlanding’ because of you!”
Then she got specific. Lisa, she said, has traits of family and friends she loves. But the character’s choices have also, at times, been very close to her own: choosing not to have children, being away for work a lot, being a godparent. “Art has imitated life many times for a lot of the cast!”
That may be the quiet secret of her long run on the ranch. A lot of Lisa was never a stretch.
Quick answer: Jessica Steen was born in Toronto on December 19, 1965, and is 60 now. Before Heartland, she was Cpl. Jennifer “Pilot” Chase on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, flew the shuttle as co-pilot Jennifer Watts in Armageddon, and played NCIS Special Agent Paula Cassidy from 2003 to 2007. She arrived as Lisa in Heartland’s third episode that same year, and she is still on the show in Season 20.
A Pilot Long Before the Ranch
Steen grew up in the business in Toronto, the daughter of actress Joanna Noyes and director-actor Jan Steen. In 1987, still in her early twenties, she landed a lead on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, a syndicated sci-fi series with a short run that fans never quite let go of. She played Chase for all 22 episodes of its only season, and she earned a Gemini Award nomination for the episode “Judgment.”
Chase did not get a gentle exit. In the finale, she died defending the base. It was an early sign of a career that would keep putting Steen in uniform, in cockpits, and, more than once, in the blast radius.
There were other stops before Hudson: the 1990s drama Homefront, the sci-fi series Earth 2, and a Gemini Award for the CBC film Small Gifts. Then came the job that put her in a space suit.
Bruises in a Shuttle Cockpit
In 1998, Steen was shuttle co-pilot Jennifer Watts in Armageddon, flying with Bruce Willis and a crew of oil drillers turned astronauts. She already knew her way around effects-heavy sets from Captain Power. Still, the scale of this one felt different. “I got to go nose-to-nose cone with a real shuttle,” she told Starlog that year. “I was up in the gantry and wore a space suit. This is major stuff.”
The cockpit was built on a gimbal that, she said, put theme-park rides to shame. “I’ve never been covered in more bruises in my life than I was the week we shot inside the shuttle for the asteroid landing sequence.”
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer even introduced her to a real shuttle pilot and told her, “This is who your character is based on.”
Agent Paula Cassidy
In November 2003, she turned up on NCIS as Special Agent Paula Cassidy, an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay, in the episode “Minimum Security.” She was under investigation after a Navy translator died. Michael Weatherly‘s Tony DiNozzo was immediately drawn to her. Gibbs was suspicious. Her name was cleared, and a flirtation with Tony followed, with later hints that the two had dated briefly.
She came back for six episodes in all, spread over about five years. The last one was “Grace Period,” which aired on April 3, 2007. By then, Cassidy was leading her own team at the Pentagon. A tip about terrorist activity turned out to be a trap, and two of her agents were killed. She blamed herself, then stayed on the case with Gibbs’ team. At the end, she tackled a suicide bomber and was killed in the blast, saving the others. A grief-stricken Tony finally told Jeanne he loved her.
Steen can laugh about the exit now. “[My role] sort of went on for this span of about five years,” she told Cheat Sheet in 2020. “And then it went to a phase where I got blown up. I’ve gotten blown up on five different shows.”
She also liked what the show was doing. “NCIS so uniquely couples intensity and humor, which I really appreciate about it,” she said. “It delves into the lives of the players, which not all procedural shows do.”
As for Cassidy herself: “I would say she doesn’t like to be pushed around, she doesn’t like to be underestimated.” Steen saw a caring side too, and a habit of sticking her neck out for other people. “We are the same in that sometimes she might underestimate herself but then surprise others and herself with her ability.”
The Ranch That Felt Like Home
That same year, on October 28, 2007, she arrived in Hudson. Heartland was only three episodes old. In “Breaking Free,” Lisa Stillman, a world-famous horse breeder, needed help with a horse named Promise, who turned aggressive under a saddle.
She kept coming back. Lisa became the partner, then the wife, of Shaun Johnston‘s Jack Bartlett, and one of the show’s steadiest adult leads. Their story, with all the stubbornness and the secret wedding, is one fans saw coming, and we have written about how Jack and Lisa won them over.
The horses were not new to her either. “My Dad had a farm when I was a kid…we had horses & I had ridden before Heartland came along a number of times over the years.” She has even wondered, with a grin, whether the riding on the page came first or the lessons did. “I’m thinking next year I’ll pay for some lessons and hope they pay off on the page.”
When she talks about why she has stayed, it is not the plot twists. “Favourite is hard to say, but the top 3 things I fully appreciate are: the people I work with, the city of Calgary & the beauty of Alberta & the family based material,” she told Cowgirls In Style in 2023. And the closeness is real. “Since the very beginning the cast & crew have play dated after school often and met up in different cities and hosted each other and always kept in touch between seasons.”
She was still there in Season 19, and she is in Season 20, which is on the air now in Canada. In “The Glass Floor,” Lisa and Jack are still side by side, still uncovering trouble together. Earlier this season, Jack even had to decide whether to retire after a health scare.
Steen turns 61 on December 19. The badge and the shuttle are a long way behind her. The ranch, somehow, is not. Her message to the fans has not changed. “We are still ‘Heartlanding’ because of you!”
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