Biography
Emmy-nominated actor Jesse Lee Soffer successfully transitioned from juvenile roles in "The Brady Bunch Movie" (1995) and other projects to grittier characters as an adult, most notably his tough cop on "Chicago P.D." ( NBC , 2014- ). Born April 23, 1984 in Ossining, New York, Soffer and his family moved to nearby Tarrytown, New York, before settling in Connecticut. He made his screen debut in a television spot for Kix cereal before earning his first film role in Joe Dante's tongue-in-cheek comedy "Matinee" (1993). Two years later, Soffer was cast as Bobby Brady, the youngest and most naive of the small-screen Brady family, in Betty Thomas' "The Brady Bunch Movie" (1995), and would reprise the role a year later in Arlene Sanford's " A Very Brady Sequel" (1996). Steady work on television, including co-starring roles with Lauren Bacall in "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" ( ABC, 1995) and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in the short-lived "Two of a Kind" ( ABC, 1998), soon followed, but in 1998, Soffer left the daytime soap "Guiding Light" ( CBS, 1952-2009) after four months to concentrate on his education. He used his earnings from acting to pay his tuition to the Gunnery boarding school in Washington, Connecticut. Soffer then resumed his career after graduation, and landed his star-making role as troubled teen Will Munson on "As the World Turns" ( CBS , 1956-2010). He began playing Munson, who was sent to a state mental facility as an adolescent for attempting to poison his brother's fiancée, in 2004, and his sympathetic turn as a young man attempting to make right his difficult pass earned Soffer three Emmy award nominations between 2004 and 2008. Soffer left the soap in 2008 and transitioned from teenage lead to adult roles largely through guest appearances on episodic television; in 2011, he returned to features in the dystopian science fiction thriller "About Time" with Justin Timberlake . The following year, he was part of the large ensemble cast for the short-lived crime drama "The Mob Doctor" ( Fox, 2012-13), but rebounded as the doomed Travis Alexander, whose relationship with Jodi Arias led to his death, in the Lifetime made-for-TV feature "Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret" (2013). That same year, he made his first appearances as Detective Jay Halstead on "Chicago Fire" ( NBC, 2012- ); the character then became a series regular on the spinoff drama "Chicago P.D." Halstead, a former Army Ranger and skilled sniper, was involved in several high-stakes storylines throughout the series' early seasons, most notably a romance with fellow officer Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush) and the murder of a child pornographer, which he is suspected of committing.
