Michelle Forbes

Personal life

Though a longtime resident of New York City, Forbes has owned a house in Los Angeles's Hollywood Dell neighborhood.

Career

Early work

Initially wanting to do ballet, Forbes moved to New York at age 16 to audition for a film role, and ended up with the William Morris Agency. In 1987, she was cast in a pivotal role on the daytime soap opera Guiding Light. She received acclaim for her portrayal of the complicated dual role and was involved in a story with two of the show's powerhouse characters. Forbes earned a Daytime Emmy nomination.

After this role, she continued in theater, which was an early love of hers, and began appearing in small guest roles on television to raise her profile. 1994 she played George's girlfriend Julie in the Seinfeld episode The Big Salad. In 1995 she appears in the film Black Day Blue Night.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

In 1991, she had a small role in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as the daughter of a character played by David Ogden Stiers ("Half a Life"). She was brought back in the fifth season to play Ro Laren, a recurring character, for several episodes. Ro was a Bajoran whose insubordinate attitude made her several enemies, but the crew of the Enterprise - particularly Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) - took her in.

With Star Trek: The Next Generation such a hit, the producers decided to make another Trek series: Deep Space Nine. They originally envisioned Ensign Ro as a lead character, but at that stage in her career, Forbes wasn't interested in a long-running television role, so a new character, Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) was created for the show. Forbes said she would be willing to guest star in DS9, but this never came to pass.

Forbes returned for one final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled Preemptive Strike. Ro Laren remains a popular character amongst Trek fandom, and Dennis Haysbert, with whom she later starred in 24 was said to be starstruck working alongside "Ensign Ro". The producers asked Forbes back again when launching Star Trek: Voyager but she again declined.

Television

Her first major television role after Star Trek was as Julianna Cox in Homicide: Life on the Street from 1996 to 1998. In 1998, Forbes was written out of the show as part of a massive cast change which many fans see as responsible for the show's demise just one season later. She returned in the 2000 TV movie.

In 2000, Forbes had a recurring role in the first eight episodes of the TV series The District which she followed up with the TV series Wonderland, a series set in a mental institution. Forbes played Dr. Lyla Garrity. The series was critically hailed, but it only aired for a few weeks in the US before being cancelled. Forbes herself described it as a "mess that put [her] off series television". She then learned British Sign Language for the role of the profoundly deaf wife of Detective Red Metcalfe (Ken Stott) in the 2001 BBC television serial Messiah, and she returned for the sequels in 2003 and 2004. She also appeared in Perfume (aka Dress to Kill), an ensemble film about the world of fashion.

In 2002 she joined the cast of the FOX series 24. The series, set in real time over the course of one day, had been a critical success during its first season. Forbes played Lynne Kresge, aide to President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert). Notoriously, several plot points - including Lynne Kresge's fate - were left open and never resolved; while the show returned for a third season, Forbes did not.

In 2005, Forbes was set to head the cast of Mark Burnett's television series based on the Global Frequency series of comic books, but the pilot was not picked up. She subsequently guest starred on Alias and The Inside.

In 2006, Forbes was a recurring cast member on Prison Break playing Samantha Brinker. She appeared on another sci-fi series, as the unflinchingly militaristic Admiral Helena Cain in season two of Battlestar Galactica. She reprised that role in the two-hour special Battlestar Galactica: Razor, which was broadcast between the third and fourth seasons during November 2007. In season six (2007) of the BBC One drama Waking The Dead, Michelle Forbes played the role of Sarah, a Mossad agent interested in the latest mystery uncovered by the London cold case squad in the episode "Yahrzeit." She also appeared briefly in the season seven opening episode "Missing Persons."

In 2008, Forbes appeared in the HBO series In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne, as Kate Weston, the wife of Byrne's character. Forbes joined the cast of HBO series True Blood for the last three episodes of the first season as a supernatural character named Maryann. She reprised her semi-regular roles in both series in their respective second seasons in 2009.

In 2009, Forbes joined the cast of the Canadian pscyhological drama series Durham County for its second season as Dr. Penelope Verity. The season premieres in July 2009.

Feature films

In 1993, she starred with David Duchovny, Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis in the cult film Kalifornia, following this up alongside Kevin Spacey and Frank Whaley in Swimming with Sharks and in John Carpenter's Escape From L.A..

Other works

Forbes voiced the part of Dede Dragonfly in the 2004 animated short Al Roach: Private Insectigator. In 2004, she voiced the character Dr. Judith Mossman in the video game Half-Life 2, and its episodic sequels Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Forbes voiced the character Revas in the game The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, released in April 2009.