Famous Jessicas
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40 free Famous Jessicas trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few names have owned an era the way Jessica did. From 1981 to 1998 it was the first or second most popular choice for American daughters, which is why so many of the actors, singers and athletes who came of age around the millennium answer to it. This quiz gathers the Jessicas everyone knows. There are film stars with Academy Awards on the shelf, pop singers who moved into reality television and business, sitcom leads, a crime-solving novelist from Maine and the cartoon wife of a rabbit. You will also meet a teenage sailor, an astronaut, Olympians and Paralympians, and the Jessicas of comics, science fiction and teen paperbacks. Some questions ask what a famous Jessica did; others ask who played her, married her or wrote her. It makes a ready-made themed pub quiz round, a treat at a birthday party for the Jessica in your life, or anyone who likes general knowledge with a twist. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess leaves you with a story to tell.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The name Jessica is first recorded in which Shakespeare play, where she is the daughter of the moneylender Shylock?
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice gives the name to a daughter who elopes with the penniless Lorenzo and a chest of her father's money. Shakespeare may have adapted it from Iscah, a name found in Genesis.
Q 02Rescuers in Midland, Texas, spent 58 hours in October 1987 freeing toddler "Baby Jessica" McClure from what?
A backyard well
A backyard well only eight inches wide held the 18-month-old about 22 feet down, so crews drilled a parallel shaft through rock to reach her. All three big US television networks carried the rescue live.
Q 03In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which Body Heat star gave Jessica Rabbit her speaking voice without screen credit?
Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner came to the part through director Robert Zemeckis, who had worked with her on Romancing the Stone. She took it while pregnant, since all she had to do was turn up and speak; Amy Irving sang for the character.
Q 04Jessica Simpson's marriage to which pop singer was followed by MTV cameras for the reality series Newlyweds?
Nick Lachey
Nick Lachey, lead singer of 98 Degrees, married her in Austin in October 2002, and the series began the next year. It made both of them household names before the marriage ended in 2006.
Q 05Jessica Chastain attended Juilliard on a scholarship funded by which comedian, himself a former student there?
Robin Williams
Robin Williams funded the scholarship she was granted on being accepted. He had left the school in his junior year, after a teacher suggested it had nothing more to teach him.
Q 06Which actress played mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher of Cabot Cove, Maine, for twelve seasons of Murder, She Wrote?
Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury got the role only after Jean Stapleton, for whom the producers had developed it, turned it down. The character's maiden name, MacGill, was borrowed from Lansbury's own mother.
Q 07Jessica Alba broke through as a genetically enhanced runaway in Dark Angel, a series co-created by which film director?
James Cameron
James Cameron made his television debut with the series, whose heavily promoted pilot drew 17.4 million viewers. Alba's Max followed his earlier tough heroines Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley.
Q 08Sarah Jessica Parker played Sarah Sanderson, one of three witches resurrected in Salem, in which 1993 Disney film?
Hocus Pocus
Hocus Pocus cast her beside Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson sisters. Yearly October airings on cable later turned the film into a cult classic.
Q 09Jessica Tandy won the Best Actress Oscar at the age of 80 for playing a Southern widow in which 1989 film?
Driving Miss Daisy
Driving Miss Daisy made her the oldest performer to have won the Best Actress Oscar. Morgan Freeman played Hoke, the chauffeur hired by her character's son after she crashes her Chrysler.
Q 10Jessica Watson, who spent 210 days sailing solo around the world aged 16, came home in 2010 to which country?
Australia
Australia greeted her in Sydney Harbour and later made her its Young Australian of the Year. She had helped to prepare her own yacht, which she called Ella's Pink Lady.
Q 11Sarah Jessica Parker played newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw in which HBO series based on Candace Bushnell's column?
Sex and the City
Sex and the City won seven Primetime Emmy Awards. Its final episode at last revealed the first name of Carrie's on-off love, Mr. Big: John.
Q 12Jessica Biel, later the wife of Justin Timberlake, found fame as minister's daughter Mary Camden in which family drama?
7th Heaven
7th Heaven cast her at 14 as the eldest Camden daughter, after she had auditioned for several television pilots. She married Timberlake at a resort in southern Italy in 2012.
Q 13Jessica Lange won her first Oscar playing a soap opera actress in which 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman?
Tootsie
Q 21Which Swedish actress plays Lady Jessica, the Bene Gesserit mother of Paul Atreides, in Denis Villeneuve's Dune films?
Rebecca Ferguson
Rebecca Ferguson took on a part played by Francesca Annis in the 1984 film version. She is also Ilsa Faust, the MI6 agent of three Mission: Impossible films.
Q 22Jessica Wakefield and her identical twin Elizabeth are the Californian heroines of which Francine Pascal book series?
Sweet Valley High
Sweet Valley High was written by a team of ghostwriters that Pascal presided over. The twins live in a fictional suburb near Los Angeles.
Q 23Gina Torres played Jessica Pearson, managing partner of a New York law firm and boss of Harvey Specter, in which drama?
Suits
Tootsie has Hoffman's out-of-work actor disguise himself as an actress, Dorothy Michaels, to win a part in a daytime soap. Lange plays the co-star he falls for while keeping up the act.
Q 14In Marvel's Netflix series Jessica Jones, which former Doctor Who star plays the mind-controlling villain Kilgrave?
David Tennant
David Tennant, the tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010, was cast as Kilgrave in January 2015. The character had once made Jessica kill someone, which ended her brief superhero career.
Q 15Zooey Deschanel played teacher Jessica Day, who moves into a Los Angeles loft with three men, in which Fox sitcom?
New Girl
New Girl begins when Jess answers a Craigslist ad for a roommate after catching her boyfriend cheating. Fox built its first marketing push for the series around Deschanel.
Q 16Sheffield-born Jessica Ennis-Hill won Olympic gold at London 2012 and three world titles in which athletics event?
Heptathlon
Heptathlon made her the 2012 Olympic champion in front of a home crowd, alongside world titles in 2009, 2011 and 2015. She also specialised in the 100 metres hurdles and is now Dame Jessica.
Q 17US Army private Jessica Lynch made headlines in 2003 when special forces retrieved her from a hospital in which country?
Iraq
Iraq was where her supply convoy was ambushed at Nasiriyah in March 2003. Her recovery nine days later was the first successful rescue of an American prisoner of war since World War II.
Q 18Jessica Walter played scheming, hard-drinking matriarch Lucille Bluth in which sitcom about a formerly wealthy family?
Arrested Development
Arrested Development brought her renewed attention three decades after her film breakthrough in Play Misty for Me. She went on to voice another sharp-tongued mother, the spymaster Malory Archer.
Q 19Jessica Alba, inspired by the birth of her first child, co-founded which maker of diapers and household goods?
The Honest Company
The Honest Company grew out of her search for infant products free of petrochemicals and synthetic fragrances. It launched in 2012 with 17 products and was later valued at more than $1 billion.
Q 20Jessica Capshaw, stepdaughter of Steven Spielberg, played surgeon Arizona Robbins in which long-running medical drama?
Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy signed her for only three episodes of its fifth season, but creator Shonda Rhimes extended the contract and she became a series regular the following year.
Suits made the character popular enough to lead a spin-off of her own, Pearson, which follows her into the dirty politics of Chicago. Meghan Markle played paralegal Rachel Zane in the original.
Q 24Constance Wu played strict mother Jessica Huang, whose family moves to 1990s Orlando, in which ABC sitcom?
Fresh Off the Boat
Fresh Off the Boat was loosely inspired by chef Eddie Huang's 2013 memoir of the same name. The family leaves Washington's Chinatown so that the father can open a cowboy-themed steakhouse.
Q 25Which future Pitch Perfect star played Jessica Stanley, Bella Swan's first friend in Forks, in the Twilight films?
Anna Kendrick
Anna Kendrick played the chatterbox in four Twilight films. In between she made Up in the Air, which brought her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Q 26Jessica Drew, who debuted in Marvel Spotlight in 1977 as a brainwashed Hydra spy, is the alter ego of which heroine?
Spider-Woman
Spider-Woman was rushed into print, Stan Lee admitted, so that no rival publisher could bring out a heroine of that name first. Her own series then ran for 50 issues.
Q 27In The Simpsons episode Bart's Girlfriend, which Oscar-winning actress voiced Reverend Lovejoy's daughter Jessica?
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep's turn was later picked by Entertainment Weekly as one of the best guest appearances on the series. Matt Groening found Jessica hard to draw attractively in his own style.
Q 28Jessica, a 1973 instrumental by Dickey Betts later used as the BBC's Top Gear theme, was recorded by which group?
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band released it on Brothers and Sisters. Betts titled it after his infant daughter and wrote it to be playable with two fingers, in tribute to jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.
Q 29Jessica Chastain won the Best Actress Oscar for which 2021 biopic, whose subject's life rights she bought in 2012?
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
The Eyes of Tammy Faye cast her as a singing television evangelist opposite Andrew Garfield. Chastain also produced the film, through her own firm Freckle Films.
Q 30Jessica Tandy won a Tony Award in 1948 for creating the role of Blanche DuBois in which Broadway play?
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire paired her with Marlon Brando, then a virtual unknown. When the film was made she lost the part to Vivien Leigh and went back to concentrating on the stage.