COVER STORY
Cops and Robbers:
Jesse Lee Soffer WORDS BY GLENN GARNER PHOTOS BY TEREN ODDO
IT’S HARD NOT TO NOTICE POLICE IN THE MEDIA LATELY…ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY LOOK LIKE JESSE LEE SOFFER. SOFFER STARS IN CHICAGO P.D. AS DETECTIVE JAY HALSTEAD, A CHARMING TOUGH GUY PACKING HEAT. I SPOKE WITH SOFFER ABOUT HIS CAREER AND WHAT IT MEANS TO PORTRAY A COP ON TELEVISION TODAY.
Bello: So you’ve been acting for a while now, right? JLS: Yeah, I started really young. I started when I was six. I noticed you were in The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel in the ‘90s. I’m a ‘90s kid, so I think I saw the movies before I ever saw the show. Which is sad, because the show is so different from the movies. The show is so wholesome and all-American, and the movies were grotesque and brutal and just a satire. But I love it. It’s so funny. 7
They’re great. We had so much fun. I was very proud of those when I was younger; that was kind of my first big step into the industry and into the film world. And working with Gary Cole and Shelley Long, it was a real trip, and a great learning experience for an eleven-year-old. Now you play Jay Halstead on Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire and Law & Order: SVU. Does that ever get confusing with three different storylines? It gets so confusing sometimes. Shooting a television show is like guerilla warfare; it’s like, one day, you’re here on this set [and] the next June 2015 - BELLO