Jess Salgueiro Is Learning to Define Success for Herself

Jess Salgueiro has built the kind of career that refuses to settle into one easy description. Across Orphan Black, The Expanse, The Boys, Workin’ Moms, Letterkenny, and Frasier, she has moved between drama and comedy, expansive imagined worlds and stories rooted in the messiness of everyday life. In Slo Pitch, that range finds another shape in Joanne Pico, a woman trying to lead while heartbreak, ambition, competition, and friendship keep colliding around her. But talking with Salgueiro, it becomes clear that versatility is only part of what has sustained her. She keeps returning to honesty—to listening to her instincts, trusting the work, and allowing complicated women to be as imperfect as people actually are. And after years in an industry built around being chosen, she is increasingly interested in deciding for herself what makes the work worthwhile.

GREAY: From Orphan Black, The Expanse, and The Boys to Workin’ Moms, Letterkenny, and Frasier, you have had the chance to live in very different kinds of television. Does your approach change depending on the world of the show, or is there something you always return to as an actor?

Jess Salgueiro: I start with listening to my instinct, and I’ll ride that thing as far as it takes me. I heard an interview with William H. Macy (I am pretty sure he was quoting someone) when he said, “It’s not the actor’s job to be funny; it’s the writer’s job to be funny; it’s the actor’s job to be honest.” I get that, and I think it applies to drama as well. My job, when done well/correctly, is to be as honest as I can within the bizarre, imaginary circumstances I’ve been given.

GREAY: Do you remember when acting began to feel less like something you hoped to do and more like something you knew belonged to you?

Jess Salgueiro: I’d probably say in theatre school. I went to a college called Randolph Academy (which has since closed, R.I.P.). It was a musical theatre school, so we were trained in singing, dancing, and acting. I did not arrive at that school as a singer, and I was so stretched out of my comfort zone and faced so many fears (like having to improvise a musical) that I felt like I could probably at least try anything. After my graduating production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where I played R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson’s role) as a woman and as a bisexual woman, I was like, “Oh cool, maybe I really can make any character my own.”

GREAY: What has helped you stay connected to yourself while building a career in an industry that can ask people to constantly prove themselves?

Jess Salgueiro: What an excellent question. This answer oscillates all the time. I’ll be honest, sometimes I can feel pretty beaten down by the heaps of rejection, but thank the heavens I have beautiful, supportive people around me who relentlessly cheer me on. When I don’t get a part I really wanted, I know I can immediately reach out to someone in my circle, and they will help bring me back to Earth, back to my centre, back to myself. I really do think my community is my saving grace.

GREAY: In Slo Pitch, Joanne Pico is ambitious, heartbroken, competitive, and trying to lead a team while navigating her own mess. What did you understand about her right away?

Jess Salgueiro: I understood her internal motor. She is gutted but doing everything she can to stay above water. I really get that because that is often how I am in my darkest hours. I understood the frantic need to accomplish, to distract, to win. It’s like a perpetual propulsion at a high speed that can keep you going in circles. Joanne and I (for that matter) sometimes need to slow down in order to direct the motor in the right direction.

GREAY: Slo Pitch is funny, but it is also about belonging, heartbreak, friendship, and the people who become family. What did that sense of community feel like among the cast?

Jess Salgueiro: When I say I loved going to work every day (even those 5 am pick-ups), I mean it! The show began as a web series, but I was not in the original, so I was very nervous starting out. I was hyper-aware that even though Joanne is the coach, I was actually the new one on the team. I am so grateful that these absolute honeys made me feel so welcomed and supported. We made each other laugh on and off camera. I had serious withdrawal when we finished filming.

GREAY: There is something very exposed about mockumentary comedy. A look to the camera or a pause can tell us more than a whole scene of dialogue. Did that format change the way you thought about Joanne?

Jess Salgueiro: It didn’t change the way I thought of her, but it definitely added a dimension to the storytelling that I’d never played with before. Exactly as you said—a look can tell us so much, more than most of the dialogue, honestly. It almost acts like the character’s confidante; like someone they trust, maybe not at first, but someone they will grow to. I got so used to it that the next job I did, I kept accidentally looking in the lens.

GREAY: You have played women who are funny, guarded, strong, restless, and sometimes difficult. Do you find yourself drawn to characters who are not easily explained or tidied up?

Jess Salgueiro: Absolutely. I personally love watching complicated female characters. I love watching women be everything from a little messy to a diabolical villain. I find watching them to be a total release valve. We have been so conditioned to believe we have to be perfect, virtuous people, and those expectations can be so crushing. The shame imposed on women specifically if they aren’t the model wife/mother/angel is unfair, and I think watching them make mistakes or be selfish in media is such a massive relief. Like, oh right, we are human!

GREAY: Is there something you understand about success now that you did not understand when you started out?

Jess Salgueiro: “Success” in this business is so elusive. Even when you think you’ve gotten somewhere, there’s a whole other echelon, a whole other pay cheque, a whole other party you’re not invited to. I’ve realized that the only way I can quantify success is how I feel about my work. The gift of experience has made me a lot more confident, and confidence is the only way to quantify “success” to me now. And ya know what? I like it that way. It puts the power back in my own hands. If I do the work, and I feel deep down that I did my best, then—Great! It was a success.

GREAY: What have you become more protective of as you have grown in this industry?

Jess Salgueiro: I refuse to be disrespected now. I think before, when certain cough (male) directors would talk to me in a belittling, dismissive way, I would take it. I felt like, oh, this is just “the tax of being a young woman.” Oh God, help a man who tries to belittle me or anyone else around me now. I’ve worked on too many wonderful sets to ever normalize that behavior again.

GREAY: What kinds of stories or characters are you hoping come your way next?

Jess Salgueiro: I want to play some badass bitches SO bad. A warrior would be nice, an assassin maybe? I want to wear boots, sunglasses, and be on a mission, that I know for sure.

GREAY: Is there a director, writer, actor, comedian, or artist you would love to work with?

Jess Salgueiro: Yes. I want to work with Hiro Murai—I love everything that man touches (Atlanta, Widow’s Bay)!

GREAY: What feels important to you outside of work right now?

Jess Salgueiro: Stopping evil men and corporations who continue to destroy the planet and the people living in it.

There is a confidence in Salgueiro now that does not sound like certainty so much as ownership. She can admit that rejection still hurts, recognize the people who bring her back to herself, and acknowledge an industry where there can always seem to be another level to reach. What has changed is who gets to determine whether she has succeeded. Salgueiro has learned to measure that from the inside: whether she did the work, whether she told the truth, whether she can stand behind what she made. She is also clearer about what she will no longer accept and increasingly excited by everything she has not yet had the chance to do. Maybe that is why the warrior and assassin roles sound so appealing. After years of wondering where she fit within the work, Jess Salgueiro sounds ready to walk into the next chapter already knowing.

Photography Kristina Ruddick @kristinaruddick

Words Kyra Greene @noteasybeingreen

Makeup Alanna Fennell @makeupxalun