Why Billie Sutton From The Resident Looks So Familiar
Though it has officially wrapped its six-season run on Fox, for the better part of that tenure, "The Resident" was one of the most consistently engaging medical dramas on television. And over that span, the series regularly boasted call sheets that would be the envy of any program in the small-screen realm. Those call sheets, of course, regularly fronted names like Emily VanCamp, Bruce Greenwood, Malcom-Jamal Warner, Jane Leeves, and Morris Chestnut. Starting with the series' fourth season, they cast also included Jessica Lucas.
Lucas joined "The Resident" as Billie Sutton, a gifted neurosurgeon at Chastain Park Memorial with incredibly close ties to series headliners Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czurchry) and Nicolette Nevin (Van Camp). By the time the series ended, she was as central to the overarching plot as any character who'd ever graced the halls of Chastain. Some might even argue the series was at its late-season best when Billie was in the spotlight.
If you tuned in to the final two seasons of "The Resident," you know that statement is hard to argue against. But you might also have spent considerable time trying to figure out exactly where you've seen Jessica Lucas before. Here's why "The Resident" star looks so familiar.
Jessica Lucas got her first big break on Edgemont
Now more than two decades into her screen career, Jessica Lucas has amassed a film and television resume so impressive that it's a little bit baffling she isn't a household name already. You may not realize it, but Lucas was actually born in Vancouver, British Columbia. And if you're a fan of Canadian television, you surely know one of the actor's first big breaks came when she booked a steady gig on the hit teen drama, "Edgemont."
If you're familiar with "Edgemont," you know Lucas was not the only rising star in the Great White North to break through on the series during its early-2000s heyday, with "Smallville" star Kristin Kreuk, "Battlestar Galactica" alum Grace Park, and several others also coming up on the show. As for Lucas, she joined the series as a recurring character — Bekka Lawrence — during its second season on the air. She soon became a regular player in all the angsty, socially aware action that unfolded in the hallowed halls of McKinley High School.
Lucas would go on to appear in a total of 47 episodes before "Edgemont" was canceled. And there's little question that logging so much time in the teen melodrama realm helped Lucas book other teen-centric gigs, like the star-studded 2006 Amanda Bynes vehicle, "She's the Man," the "Beverly Hills 90210" reboot, and the subsequent "Melrose Place" reboot.
Cloverfield found Lucas fleeing a monster
As for those "Beverly Hills, 90210," and "Melrose Place" reboot gigs, they actually came after Jessica Lucas landed a pair of other notable roles. The first of those came via a four-episode arc as agent-in-the-making Ronnie Lake on the smash-hit series, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." The second came when J.J. Abrams picked her to play a major role in Matt Reeves' found-footage blockbuster, "Cloverfield."
Set over a matter of a few hours, that harrowing film followed a crew of young New Yorkers fighting to survive the night as a giant monster lay waste to the city. Renowned as much for the viral marketing campaign employed ahead of its release, as well as its stylish ingenuity, the sci-fi horror spectacle also gave major exposure to rising stars like Lizzy Caplan, Ben Feldman, and Michael Stahl-David.
Lucas is very much a part of that list as her character, Lily Ford, was at the center of the pulse-pounding action throughout. She was often at the center of the drama, too, as her on-screen beau, Jason Hawkins (Mike Vogel), becomes one of the monster's early victims during the gang's ill-fated attempt to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. Lucas' work as Lily in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy is arguably one of the film's emotional highlights.
Lucas put on a most wicked smile in 2013's Evil Dead
"Cloverfield" proved a legit career booster for Jessica Lucas. And the actor would return to the horror genre a few years later, landing a key role in the Fede Alvarez-helmed remake, "Evil Dead." Falling in a sort of narrative gray area between straight remake, and pseudo-sequel, 2013's "Evil Dead" takes its setup, gore-loving approach, and numerous story beats from Sam Raimi's iconic 1981 gore-fest of the same name.
In the eyes of some, Alvarez and company surprisingly manage to out-gore Raimi's beloved original. They also bolster the cabin-in-the-woods drama significantly by adding an addiction subplot into the mix. Still, the essential plot of five friends meeting increasingly horrifying ends after using a demonic text to summon malevolent forces into the mix remains very much intact. And Lucas' Olivia meets a particularly ghastly fate after said forces possess her, with the actor going all in on the bloody, wildly over-the-top action.
Just like many of her projects past and present, Lucas stars in the film alongside an impressive cast of soon-to-be stars, including Jane Levy, Lou Taylor Pucci, and Shiloh Fernandez — though she sadly does not share a single scene with O.G. "Evil Dead" legend, Bruce Campbell.
Gotham found Lucas playing a ruthless villain
Jessica Lucas followed her "Evil Dead" gig with supporting roles in the 2014 rom-com "That Awkward Moment," and 2014's critically-drubbed historical actioner, "Pompeii." While neither of those projects quite set the box office ablaze, they did see the actor sharing scenes with soon-to-be stars like Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, MacKenzie Davis, Zac Effron, and Kit Harrington. And in 2015, Lucas added quite a few other impressive names to her list of co-stars, when she joined the cast of Fox's go-for-broke, pre-Batman bonanza, "Gotham."
Notorious for playing fast, and exceedingly loose with established Dark Knight lore, "Gotham" aired five increasingly bonkers seasons of action between 2014 and 2019. Along the way, the series explored not only Batman's origin, but gave origin stories to virtually every single villain he ever faced off against in the pages of DC Comics. As it was, Lucas' role as Tabitha Galavan was not one of them, as the character was created specifically for the show. Tabitha's alter-ego, Tigress, however, was very much a part of comic book lore, with Lucas bringing considerable wit and brute-force whimsy to the proceedings for the character amalgam.
Lucas made her first appearance on "Gotham" during its second season, with the guns and whip-loving villain soon becoming a force to be reckoned with on the crime-addled streets of the titular city. She'd remain as much until she was permanently taken off the "Gotham" chess board early in the series' barn-burning final season.