Jes Macallan

From Accounting Books to the Milan Runways

Jes Macallan did not grow up rehearsing acceptance speeches in front of the bedroom mirror in Sarasota. Her original life plan was far from the Hollywood spotlight and ran through financial statements at the University of Florida. There she graduated with a degree in International Business, a technical education that still shapes how she handles contracts in the industry today.

But the modeling market crossed her path before she could ever set foot in an office. In her early twenties, she worked in Milan, Miami and New York for international brands. That stage allowed her to pay for her real training at the Maggie Flanigan Studio, where she learned the Meisner technique of acting.

Sometimes the market decides.

In 2011, she landed her first supporting roles in series such as Shameless and Grey’s Anatomy. These were brief appearances that helped pay the bills while she looked for a project that would take her out of the guest-star category. Her real break came in 2013, when ABC cast her in the main lineup of a new drama series.

The Waverider's command and the fan phenomenon

In 2013, she played Josslyn Carver in Mistresses, a role she held for four seasons and 52 episodes. That show gave her the visibility she needed for casting directors to stop seeing her as just a model who wanted to act. She worked alongside Alyssa Milano and rode out the criticism that often came with this kind of fast-paced, mass-market production.

Broadcast television has its own rules.

Her move into science fiction happened in 2017. She joined the third season of Legends of Tomorrow to bring Ava Sharpe to life, the director of the Bureau of Time. Her contract was initially temporary, but her chemistry with lead Caity Lotz led the writers to rewrite her fate.

And the character stayed until the end. Fans of the DC Comics universe turned their on-screen relationship into a symbol of LGBTQ+ representation on mainstream television. Macallan went from a bureaucratic antagonist to co-captain of the Waverider for five consecutive years.

The transition behind the monitor

In 2021, she decided her time on set should evolve toward creative decision-making. She directed the episode The Final Frame in the sixth season of her own superhero series. That technical experience helped her understand the rhythm of filming from a logistical perspective, not just an emotional one.

She returned to the director’s chair in 2022 with the episode Fixed Points. On that production she managed a large budget and complex visual effects in a shoot shaped by health and safety protocols. After the series was canceled that same year, she focused on finding projects where executive producing was part of the deal.

But she never fully left acting behind.

In 2023, she joined the cast of The Company You Keep on ABC, playing Martha Pope. In this spy drama, she shared scenes with Milo Ventimiglia during the first season of the project. In 2024, she took part in the shoot of the independent film The Last Stop in Yuma County, directed by Francis Galluppi.

In 2023, she worked on the production of The Company You Keep under Jon Huertas’s direction in episode five.