Nicole Forester

Nicole Forester (born Nicole Theresa Schmidt on November 19, 1972) is an American actress whose career spans more than three decades of television, film, and stage work. She began dance training at five and entered professional musical theatre by age twelve, laying a foundation of performance discipline that would later inform her screen acting. After graduating from the Creative and Performing Arts Program at Winston Churchill High School in Livonia, Michigan, she pursued Musical Theatre Performance at Western Michigan University and later refined her craft at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, adopting her grandmother’s maiden name as her professional surname. Forester’s early Los Angeles credits include guest spots on Two and a Half Men, Monk, Will & Grace, Beverly Hills 90210 and the Star Trek franchises, where she portrayed a dabo girl in the Deep Space Nine episode “Distant Voices” and Nora in the Enterprise episode “Horizon”. Her commercial work—spanning The Olive Garden, Miller Lite, Claritin and American Airlines—demonstrated her versatility and on‑camera charisma. Relocating to New York City in 2005, she secured the coveted contract role of Cassie Layne Winslow on the CBS soap Guiding Light, appearing in nearly three hundred episodes and earning a Daytime Emmy nomination for Lead Actress in 2008. In 2010 she worked opposite Richard Gere in The Double while seven months pregnant, and later appeared in Jack Reacher (2012) alongside Tom Cruise. Forester’s portrayal of Maggie Zajac, the politically astute spouse of gubernatorial candidate Ben Zajac, in the second season of the Golden Globe‑nominated drama Boss showcased her ability to convey nuanced, power‑driven characters. Today she continues to appear on television, most notably as Christie on NBC’s Chicago Fire, while also indulging her love of knitting, modeling for the cover of Greetings from Knit Café, and balancing a family life with husband Paul Brown and their two children.