Melissa O'Neil

Melissa O'Neil (born July 12, 1988, in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian actress and singer-songwriter of Chinese-Irish descent. Her mother is Chinese Canadian, originally from Hong Kong, and her father is Irish Canadian. O'Neil attended Lester B. Pearson High School in Calgary, where she participated in musicals, played rugby, and competed on the basketball team. She went on to build a career spanning competitive singing, recording, musical theatre, Broadway, and television.

While still a high school student in early 2005, O'Neil auditioned for the third season of Canadian Idol. Her a cappella performance of Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel" on the first day of the top 100 round drew strong praise from the judges, and despite forgetting the lyrics to her chosen song on the final day of that round, she advanced to the top 32. She again performed "Concrete Angel" in her semi-final group, earning the highest vote total and securing a place in the final ten. Although she landed in the bottom three and bottom two during the top ten and top nine weeks respectively, she recovered to deliver consistently praised performances through the remainder of the competition. On September 14, 2005, O'Neil defeated Rex Goudie in the grand finale to be crowned the third Canadian Idol, becoming the first female winner, the first winner of Chinese descent, and, at seventeen, the youngest winner in the show's history.

Following her Canadian Idol victory, O'Neil received a congratulatory call from Prime Minister Paul Martin and signed a recording contract with Sony BMG Canada. Her debut single, "Alive," was released on October 4, 2005, debuted at number one on the Canadian singles chart, held that position for four weeks, and was eventually certified four-times platinum by the CRIA. Her self-titled debut album followed on November 22, 2005, debuting at number sixteen on the Canadian albums chart. A second single, "Let It Go," peaked at number seven, and a third, "Speechless," reached number thirty-one. In March 2006, the album was certified gold by the CRIA for 50,000 units shipped. O'Neil supported the album with her first solo tour, the Let It Go Tour, which launched on February 7, 2006, in North Bay, Ontario, with Goudie as her opening act. In 2007, she received a Juno Award nomination for New Artist of the Year, alongside Neverending White Lights, Tomi Swick, Patrick Watson, and Eva Avila; the award went to Swick. In 2009, O'Neil became the lead vocalist for the Toronto funk band God Made Me Funky.

Concurrent with her recording career, O'Neil pursued musical theatre. She was a featured singer in the Toronto production of Dirty Dancing and played Gabriella in the Drayton Entertainment production of High School Musical On Stage, which ran in St. Jacobs and Penetanguishene. She appeared in Stage West Calgary's production of British Invasion alongside Terry Hatty, former lead singer of The Guess Who, and made an appearance in Camelot. In 2011, she made her Stratford Shakespeare Festival debut playing Martha/Maid by the Fire in that season's production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

O'Neil made her Broadway debut in March 2012 in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Neil Simon Theatre, where she played Martha, Maid by the Fire and served as understudy to the role of Mary Magdalene. In 2013, she was promoted to play Éponine. She returned to Broadway in March 2014 in a revival of Les Misérables at the Imperial Theatre, where she was a member of the ensemble and understudied the roles of Éponine and Fantine. Separately, she played Éponine in a sit-down production of Les Misérables at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre, which ran from September 2013 through February 2014, a performance for which she won the Dora Award for Outstanding Female Performance.

O'Neil transitioned into screen acting beginning in 2015, taking on recurring roles in the CBC drama This Life, the crime series Rogue, and the musical drama web series Lost Generation, originally titled Pulse, with a book and score by Duncan Sheik. In December 2014, she was cast in the starring role of Two/Rebecca/Portia Lin in the Syfy space opera Dark Matter, a part she held for three seasons from 2015 to 2017. In 2018, she played Suki in the CW procedural iZombie and appeared in a recurring role in the thriller Condor, a television remake of Three Days of the Condor. In October 2018, O'Neil was cast as LAPD Officer Lucy Chen in the ABC police drama series The Rookie, opposite Nathan Fillion.