Jesse Lee Soffer

Early life

Soffer was born in Ossining, New York, to Stan Soffer and Jill B. Hindes. His family moved to Tarrytown before settling in Connecticut. He has three half-sisters and a half-brother.

Soffer boarded at The Gunnery, graduating in 2002. He played soccer in school and was named in the all-star team (prep school category) during his senior season. He took classes at New York University (NYU).

Career

Soffer's acting career began at age six when he landed a Kix cereal commercial. In 1993 at age of eight, he made his feature film debut with John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty in the comedy Matinee.

In 1994, Soffer co-starred as Percival in the drama Safe Passage. In 1995, Soffer co-starred as Bobby Brady in the comedy The Brady Bunch Movie and reprised his role in A Very Brady Sequel a year later. Continuing the pattern of working with Oscar-calibre and A-list talent, Soffer starred as a runaway-turned-sleuth Jamie Kincaid in the TV movie From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. He worked with director Richard Shepard in the AMC TV movie The Royale. In 1998, Soffer was cast as Taylor Donovan with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on the ABC sitcom Two of a Kind. He also originated the role of Max Nickerson on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light in 1999. After four months on the show, he left to focus on his studies.

After graduating from high school, Soffer returned to his television career. In 2004, he took over the role of troubled youth Will Munson on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns. He played the role until April 4, 2008. As of 2008, he was nominated three times for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series for his work on ATWT as well as a Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Younger Lead Actor in 2005. In 2007, Soffer returned to his film career and co-starred with Carly Schroeder in Davis Guggenheim's sports drama Gracie, based on a true story. In July 2010, Soffer reprised his role as Will Munsen on As the World Turns. In 2011, Soffer co-starred in the dystopian science fiction action thriller In Time. Since then, he guest-starred on a number of television series including CSI: Miami, The Mentalist and Rizzoli & Isles. In 2012, he co-starred with Jordana Spiro in the short-lived Fox medical drama The Mob Doctor as Nate Devlin, the streetwise brother of Dr. Grace Devlin (Spiro). Later that year, he co-starred as Travis Alexander in Lifetime's original movie Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret.

In June 2013, it was reported Soffer had joined the cast of the NBC police procedural drama Chicago P.D., the first spin-off show from the drama Chicago Fire as Det. Jay Halstead. Halstead was introduced in the second season of Chicago Fire. Chicago P.D. premiered on January 8, 2014. On March 19, 2014, NBC renewed the series for a second season. NBC officially announced it would premiere September 24, 2014. Soffer does his own stunts on the show.

On September 24, 2014, Soffer appeared in the second season premiere of the YouTube comedy/talk webseries Talking Marriage with Ryan Bailey.

Awards and nominations