Jill Hennessy
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40 free Jill Hennessy trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jill Hennessy is one of those actors television viewers feel they know. For three seasons she was prosecutor Claire Kincaid on Law & Order, and for six more she carried Crossing Jordan as the rule-bending medical examiner Jordan Cavanaugh. This quiz follows the whole career: her Canadian childhood and early stage work, the two hit crime dramas and the people she shared them with, film roles alongside some very famous leading men, and later turns in cable dramas and westerns. It also covers the other half of her working life, as a singer-songwriter who records and performs live. The questions suit fans of nineties and noughties crime television, and anyone who has ever wondered where they have seen her before. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01How was Jill Hennessy's character Claire Kincaid written out of Law & Order at the end of its sixth season?
Killed in a car crash
Killed in a car crash by a drunk driver: that was Claire Kincaid's exit after Jill Hennessy chose not to renew her three-year contract.
Q 02Jill Hennessy made her film debut in the 1988 thriller Dead Ringers alongside which real-life relative?
Her twin sister
Her twin sister shared the scene, the two playing call girls in a film that is itself about a pair of identical doctors.
Q 03Jill Hennessy was reportedly on the shortlist to play the female FBI agent in which 1990s paranormal series?
The X-Files
The X-Files role of Dana Scully went to Gillian Anderson, who has said Jill Hennessy was on the shortlist for the part.
Q 04Before finding fame as an actress, Jill Hennessy used to busk in the subway of which Canadian city?
Toronto
Toronto commuters heard her long before television audiences did, and she later released two albums as a singer-songwriter.
Q 05Jill Hennessy appeared on Broadway in 1990 in a musical about which bespectacled rock and roll pioneer?
Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly was the subject, and Hennessy played several parts in the show, among them the singer's wife Maria Elena.
Q 06Which actor played Jack McCoy, the prosecutor Jill Hennessy's Claire Kincaid assisted on Law & Order from 1994?
Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston joined a year after Hennessy, and McCoy's reputation for affairs with his assistants extends to Kincaid herself.
Q 07Jill Hennessy played engineer Dr. Marie Lazarus in the 1993 third film of which science-fiction franchise?
RoboCop
RoboCop 3 cast her as the scientist who quits the OCP corporation and reprograms the cyborg hero to fight for the resistance.
Q 08In the 2007 road comedy Wild Hogs, Jill Hennessy plays the wife of which actor's character?
Tim Allen
Tim Allen plays her husband Doug Madsen, a dentist who sets off for California with three equally restless friends.
Q 09Which future WandaVision star played grief counselor Lily Lebowski opposite Jill Hennessy on Crossing Jordan?
Kathryn Hahn
Kathryn Hahn so impressed the show's creator when they met at a festival that he wrote the character of Lily specifically for her.
Q 10Which future Oscar winner began his television career as Dr. Trey Sanders on Jill Hennessy's Crossing Jordan?
Mahershala Ali
Mahershala Ali, then billed under his full first name Mahershalalhashbaz, was a regular in the first season, fifteen years before Moonlight.
Q 11Which Stand by Me actor played Woody Hoyt, the detective love interest of Jill Hennessy's Jordan Cavanaugh?
Jerry O'Connell
Jerry O'Connell stayed until the show was cancelled in 2007, and in the final episode Jordan at last tells Woody she loves him.
Q 12Which producer, creator of the Law & Order franchise, signed Jill Hennessy to play Claire Kincaid in 1993?
Dick Wolf
Dick Wolf cast her to replace the departing Richard Brooks, and the part became Hennessy's big network breakthrough.
Q 13Jill Hennessy's two signature series, Law & Order and Crossing Jordan, both aired on which American network?
NBC
NBC carried both: three seasons of Hennessy as a prosecutor, then six more as the lead of her own crime drama.
Q 21Jill Hennessy appears in The Paper, a 1994 newsroom comedy-drama starring which Batman actor as a tabloid editor?
Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton leads the film as Henry Hackett, a weary metro editor at the New York Sun; Hennessy plays Deanne White.
Q 22Jill Hennessy co-starred in a 1996 film about Valerie Solanas, the writer who shot which pop artist in 1968?
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol survived the attack at his Factory studio; in the film Lili Taylor plays Solanas and Hennessy plays Laura.
Q 23Which comedian wrote and starred in Most Wanted, the 1997 action thriller co-starring Jill Hennessy as a doctor?
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Q 14Crossing Jordan, starring Jill Hennessy as a crime-solving medical examiner, is set in which American city?
Boston
Boston is home to Jordan Cavanaugh, a forensic pathologist for the Massachusetts medical examiner who cannot leave a violent crime unsolved.
Q 15Jill Hennessy's Jordan Cavanaugh crossed over into Las Vegas, a casino drama led by which Godfather actor?
James Caan
James Caan played casino boss Ed Deline, his first starring role in a television series, and Hennessy guest-starred as Jordan in crossover episodes.
Q 16On Crossing Jordan, the murder of which loved one drives Jill Hennessy's character to chase violent crimes?
Her mother
Her mother's death hangs over the whole series, and a psychiatric patient named Herman Redding claims to know the truth about it.
Q 17Crossing Jordan went on hiatus for most of the 2003–04 season to accommodate which event in Jill Hennessy's life?
Her pregnancy
Her pregnancy paused production, and the show did not return until March 2004, with a shortened season of 13 episodes.
Q 18Crossing Jordan creator Tim Kring later made which drama about ordinary people with superpowers?
Heroes
Heroes arrived in 2006, while Crossing Jordan was still on air, and earned Kring an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series.
Q 19Which cousin of George Clooney played Dr. Garret Macy, the boss of Jill Hennessy's Crossing Jordan character?
Miguel Ferrer
Miguel Ferrer, son of singer Rosemary Clooney and actor José Ferrer, ran the office as Macy from 2001 until the series ended in 2007.
Q 20Jill Hennessy's first film, the 1988 thriller Dead Ringers, was directed by which Canadian master of body horror?
David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg co-wrote and directed the film, which went on to win ten Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture.
Keenen Ivory Wayans plays a Marine framed for an assassination, and Hennessy's Dr. Victoria Constantini holds the video evidence of what really happened.
Q 24Jill Hennessy played a precinct commander in Exit Wounds, a 2001 action film starring which martial-arts actor?
Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal starred opposite the rapper DMX, and one critic wrote that Hennessy's small part showed she might just be a movie star.
Q 25Which real-life brothers played the sons of Jill Hennessy's character in the 2008 Long Island drama Lymelife?
Rory and Kieran Culkin
Rory and Kieran Culkin play Scott and Jimmy Bartlett in a film its writers, also brothers, drew from their own 1970s childhood.
Q 26Jill Hennessy appears briefly as a doomed NSA agent in which 2024 comic-book film?
Madame Web
Madame Web casts her as an agent seduced and killed by the villain Ezekiel Sims, in a film whose lead is Dakota Johnson.
Q 27In the miniseries Nuremberg, Jill Hennessy plays assistant to prosecutor Robert H. Jackson, played by which actor?
Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin starred as the American chief prosecutor in TNT's two-part drama, with Hennessy as Elsie Douglas, the secretary who travels to Germany with him.
Q 28Which First Lady did Jill Hennessy portray in a 2001 miniseries about three wives of a famous political family?
Jackie Kennedy
Jackie Kennedy was her part in The Women of Camelot, opposite Lauren Holly as Ethel and Leslie Stefanson as Joan.
Q 29Which star of The White Shadow played Max Cavanaugh, father of Jill Hennessy's Crossing Jordan character?
Ken Howard
Ken Howard played the former cop turned bar owner, and in 2009 he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild.
Q 30Jill Hennessy, the star of Crossing Jordan, was born in 1968 in which Alberta city?
Edmonton
Edmonton was only the first stop: her father's sales job required considerable travel, and the family moved frequently.