Jessica Paré (born December 5, 1980) is a Canadian actress and singer known for her co-starring roles on the
AMC
AMC may refer to:
Film and television
* AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain
* AMC Networks, an American entertainment company
** AMC (TV channel)
** AMC+, streaming service
** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company
*** ...
series ''
Mad Men
''Mad Men'' is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, lasting for seven seasons and 92 episodes. Its f ...
'' and the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
series ''
SEAL Team''. She has also appeared in the films ''
Stardom'' (2000), ''
Lost and Delirious'' (2001), ''
Wicker Park'' (2004), ''
Suck
Suck may refer to:
*Suction, the force exerted by a partial vacuum
*.sucks, an Internet top-level domain
Arts and entertainment Music
* Suck (band), a South African hard rock group
* Suck, drummer for the 1990s Japanese punk band Teengenerate
* ...
'' (2009), ''
Hot Tub Time Machine'' (2010), and ''
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
'' (2015).
Early life and family
Paré was born in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, the daughter of Anthony Paré, former chair of the education department at
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...
, and Louise Mercier, a conference
interpreter. She grew up in the Montreal neighbourhood of
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce ( en, Our Lady of Grace), also nicknamed NDG, is a residential neighbourhood of Montreal in the city's West End, with a population of 166,520 (2016). An independent municipality until annexed by the City of Montreal in 1910, ...
with three brothers.
She speaks
English and
French.
Paré's father was an actor and drama teacher who toured with a theatre company, and her mother acted in amateur productions; her uncle Paul was a comedian with the sketch comedy troupe
Radio Free Vestibule.
Paré watched her father at rehearsals as a child and became interested in acting while helping him learn his lines for a production of ''
The Tempest''.
Her relatives include great-grandfather
Al Paré and great-great-uncles Noah and
Henry Timmins. 18th-century Irish dramatist, fiction writer, essayist and actress
Elizabeth Griffith is also Paré ancestor through her son, politician
Richard Griffith.
Education
Paré attended
Villa Maria, a private Catholic
high school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
in Montreal. She studied drama at
TheatreWorks and appeared in over half a dozen amateur theatre productions as a teenager, including roles as
Maid Marian
Maid Marian is the heroine of the Robin Hood legend in English folklore, often taken to be his lover. She is not mentioned in the early, medieval versions of the legend, but was the subject of at least two plays by 1600. Her history and circums ...
in ''
Robin Hood
Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is dep ...
'' and Lucy in ''
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe''.
Career
Paré landed a small role in the television film ''Bonanno: A Godfather's Story'' during her final year in high school, which convinced her to pursue acting as a career.
She also had small roles in an episode of the horror television series ''
Big Wolf on Campus'' and the French film ''En Vacances'' (1999). She dropped out of the fine arts program at Montreal's
Dawson College and pursued acting for two years.
At one point, she worked as a photographer's assistant on automotive photo shoots.
After Paré auditioned for a bit part for the independent film ''
Stardom'' (2000), director
Denys Arcand
Georges-Henri Denys Arcand (; born June 25, 1941) is a French Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. His film ''The Barbarian Invasions'' won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004. His films have also been nominated three f ...
chose her to star in the film.
She played a naive
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
player propelled to international stardom as a
supermodel
A supermodel, also spelled super-model or super model, is a highly paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in ''haute couture'' and commercial modeling. The term ''supermodel'' became prominent in the po ...
. The comedic
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
closed the 2000
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
with mixed reviews from critics.
Paré became the Canadian film industry's "
it girl
An "it girl" is an attractive young woman, who is perceived to have both sex appeal and a personality that is especially engaging.
The expression ''it girl'' originated in British upper-class society around the turn of the 20th century. ...
" following the film's release.
She was also voted one of the 25 Most Beautiful People of 2012, by ''People'', one of only a few
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
citizens to have ever been granted this designation.
Paré next starred in ''
Lost and Delirious'' (2001), a story of two young lovers set in a girls'
boarding school. The film debuted to mixed reviews at the
Sundance Film Festival. The performances of Paré and her co-stars
Mischa Barton and
Piper Perabo
Piper Lisa Perabo () (born October 31, 1976) is an American actress. Following her breakthrough in the comedy-drama film '' Coyote Ugly'' (2000), she starred in ''The Prestige'' (2006), ''Angel Has Fallen'' (2019), and as CIA agent Annie Walke ...
were, however, widely praised. Paré appeared in the television miniseries ''
Random Passage'' (2002), based on a series of award-winning novels by
Bernice Morgan
Bernice Morgan (born 1935) is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. Much of her work portrays the history and daily life of Newfoundland. She is best known for her novel "Random Passage" which became a television mini-series on CBC.Danielle F ...
. Also that year, she appeared in the television miniseries ''
Napoléon'' as the emperor's mistress and had a
cameo appearance
A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
as a pop singer in
Deepa Mehta's ''
Bollywood/Hollywood
''Bollywood/Hollywood'' is a 2002 Canadian romantic comedy drama film directed by Deepa Mehta and starring Rahul Khanna and Lisa Ray.
The film was lighthearted, humorous, and family-oriented. The film pokes fun at traditional Indian stereotypes ...
'' (2002). The following year, she starred in the girl gang
thriller film ''
Posers'' (2003), after which she appeared in the
CTV film ''The Death and Life of Nancy Eaton'', in the title role of murdered heiress
Nancy Eaton.
Paré made her Hollywood debut in the film ''
Wicker Park'' (2004). That year, she also starred in the television miniseries ''
Lives of the Saints
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...
'', was in the mockumentary ''
See This Movie'' (2004), and had a role in
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...
teen drama series ''
Jack & Bobby'', about two brothers, one whom grows up to be the
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
; Paré's character grows up to be the
First Lady.
Paré shot the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
pilot ''Protect and Serve'' in 2007,
co-starred in the independent French-Canadian
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
''Jusqu'à toi'',
and had a small role in ''
The Trotsky'' (2008), a comedy filmed in Montreal.
She filmed ''
Suck
Suck may refer to:
*Suction, the force exerted by a partial vacuum
*.sucks, an Internet top-level domain
Arts and entertainment Music
* Suck (band), a South African hard rock group
* Suck, drummer for the 1990s Japanese punk band Teengenerate
* ...
'' (2008), a
vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...
horror-comedy written and directed by
Rob Stefaniuk, for which role she learned to play the
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
.
[ ''Suck'' premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Contemporary World Cinema programme. Paré was nominated for a 2010 Canadian Comedy Award for best female performance in film for the role.
Paré played a groupie in the comedy film '' Hot Tub Time Machine'' (2010). That year, she also appeared in the Canadian comedy ''Peepers'', about pleasures in ]voyeurism
Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature.
The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". ...
. ''Peepers'' competed in the Just for Laughs film festival in Montreal in July 2010.
Also in 2010, Paré joined the cast of the AMC
AMC may refer to:
Film and television
* AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain
* AMC Networks, an American entertainment company
** AMC (TV channel)
** AMC+, streaming service
** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company
*** ...
television series ''Mad Men
''Mad Men'' is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, lasting for seven seasons and 92 episodes. Its f ...
'', playing Don Draper
Donald Francis Draper, born Richard “Dick” Whitman, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the AMC television series ''Mad Men'' (2007–2015), portrayed by Jon Hamm. Up to the Season 3 finale, Draper was creative director of fict ...
's second wife, Megan Calvet. Paré's character had a prominent role in the Season 5 opener of ''Mad Men'', in which she danced and sang a version of the 1960 Gillian Hills hit "Zou Bisou Bisou
"Zou Bisou Bisou" (also performed as "Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo") is a song written by Bill Shepherd and Alan Tew, and Michel Rivgauche for the lyrics of the French version. The song's origins stem from the Yé-yé movement with which an early version ...
". Her recording of the song was subsequently released as a download and on vinyl.
In 2011, Paré appeared in ''Beholder''. The short film, directed by Nisha Ganatra, premiered as part of the ITVS
ITVS (Independent Television Service) is a service in the United States which funds and presents documentaries on public television through distribution by PBS and American Public Television, new media projects on the Internet, and the weekly seri ...
/PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
series ''FutureStates''. She also starred in '' The Mountie'' (also known as ''The Way of the West'', and filmed under the working title of ''Red Coat Justice'' in 2009), a western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
about the North-West Mounted Police, filmed in a remote location outside of Whitehorse, Yukon
Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...
, and in the comedic short ''Sorry, Rabbi'', directed by Mark Slutsky.
In 2012, Paré appeared on stage with The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid. After signing to independent label Creation Records, they re ...
, singing " Just Like Honey", for two concerts in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
and Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
. That same year, she filmed the romantic comedy, ''Standby'', in Luxembourg and Ireland; she plays the female lead, Alice. It was released in 2014.
In 2017, Paré was added to the main cast of the CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
television series '' SEAL Team'' as Amanda Ellis, the team's CIA liaison. The series was renewed for a fourth season in 2020.
Personal life
Paré married writer and producer Joseph M. Smith in 2007. They divorced in 2010.
In 2013 she was dating musician John Kastner. On March 19, 2015, she gave birth to a son, Blues Anthony Paré Kastner.
Paré is Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. She identifies as a feminist, telling ''Fashion'' magazine, "Of course I'm a feminist... If you're not for the equal treatment of men and women, then you're a fascist."
Filmography
Film
Television
Discography
*"Zou Bisou Bisou
"Zou Bisou Bisou" (also performed as "Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo") is a song written by Bill Shepherd and Alan Tew, and Michel Rivgauche for the lyrics of the French version. The song's origins stem from the Yé-yé movement with which an early version ...
" – single – music download
A music download (commonly referred to as a digital download) is the digital transfer of music via the Internet into a device capable of decoding and playing it, such as a personal computer, portable media player, MP3 player or smartphone. T ...
, vinyl
Vinyl may refer to:
Chemistry
* Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer
* Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation
* Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry
* Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...
special edition – released March 26, 2012
Citations
Other sources
Jessica Paré
. Encore Entertainment. Retrieved on October 3, 2007.
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pare, Jessica
1980 births
Canadian film actresses
Canadian television actresses
Canadian voice actresses
Living people
People from Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Actresses from Montreal
Anglophone Quebec people
Canadian Roman Catholics
Dawson College alumni
20th-century Canadian actresses
21st-century Canadian actresses
Canadian expatriate actresses in the United States
Canadian feminists
Catholic feminists
Feminist musicians