Jesse Spencer is no stranger to American TV viewers, thanks to an uninterrupted 18-year run as part of not one, but two hit series. As Spencer’s IMDb credits demonstrate, he wrapped up a 10-season stint on NBC’s “Chicago Fire” in 2021, while prior to that he spent eight seasons on Fox’s hit medical drama, “House” — an impressive run for any actor. Speaking with “Stage Right Secrets,” Spencer reflected on the former series’ milestone 200th episode — which also marked his swan-song appearance on the show. “To have a decade on network TV is, well, it’s unusual,” he admitted. “There’s just not that many shows that get there.”
Born in the Australian city of Melbourne, Spencer got his start onstage in Australian theatrical productions, before branching into Aussie television when he was just a teenager, according to his NBC bio. Eventually making his way to Britain, he appeared in several British TV shows, including BBC’s “Death in Holy Orders,” “Lorna Doone,” and others, as well as stage productions in plays like “The Modernists” and “Peter Pan,” before heading to the U.S. and the eventual success that awaited.
While fans may think they know the handsome Aussie actor pretty well after all those years on the tube, they might not know as much as they think. To find out more, read on to discover what you don’t know about Jesse Spencer.
He was a member of the Australian Boys Choir
Long before launching a career as an actor, young Jesse Spencer was known for his vocal abilities as a member of the Australian Boys Choir. According to Spencer’s bio on the choir’s website, he joined the group in 1986 at the behest of his family, who presumably recognized his singing talent and encouraged him to nurture that gift.
Describing himself as “a rebellious sort of choirboy,” Spencer spent seven years with the chorus, ultimately becoming a chorister and touring the U.S. According to Spencer, he grew to develop a “love of music through the choir,” which led him on a path toward musical theatre that included auditioning for a production of “The King and I” starring one-time Disney star Hayley Mills. Singing isn’t Spencer’s only foray into the realm of music, though. As IMDb pointed out, Spencer apparently also plays guitar, bass, and piano, although his specialty is violin, an instrument he’s played since age 10. As Spencer wrote in an update for Scotch College Melbourne, which he attended before becoming a full-time working actor, he planned to continue “further studies in violin, acting and singing.”
While Spencer’s singing hasn’t been featured much in his onscreen roles, he did have the opportunity to showcase his vocal skills in the 2003 feature film, “Uptown Girls,” starring Dakota Fanning and the late Brittany Murphy. Spencer contributed lead vocals to a song on the soundtrack, “Molly Smiles.”
He wasn’t planning on jumping from one long-running show to another
If it seems as if Jesse Spencer has been a constant presence on television for nearly two decades, it’s kind of because he has. When he completed his eight-season run on “House” in 2012, Spencer didn’t take a breather; instead, he jumped right into another long-running series, “Chicago Fire,” which premiered later that same year.
As Spencer told the Sioux City Journal, signing on with one show immediately after completing another wasn’t his plan — it just worked out that way when he received the offer for the drama about Chicago firefighters from exec producer Dick Wolf, creator of the “Law & Order” franchise, and simply couldn’t turn it down. “I was filming the pilot of ‘Chicago Fire’ on the weekend while we were still doing ‘House,'” Spencer explained. “When I look back on it, it was probably the right thing.”
In fact, Spencer admitted, the positive experience during his eight seasons on “House” actually gave him the impetus to sign on for a new show that would likely have an equally lengthy run. “When we started ‘House,’ we took it month by month,” Spencer said. “As the show progressed, it took different directions. Things changed all the time. And that’s why I signed up for ‘Chicago Fire.’ I loved the exploration of character and relationships over the course of time.”
Jesse Spencer’s best-known TV gigs had steep learning curves
Jesse Spencer split the better part of two decades playing a doctor, then a firefighter — two very specific vocations. To present an accurate portrayal required significant research in both cases, he told Entertainment Weekly. “By the end of [‘House’], we got that down to a fine art in terms of learning all that stuff,” he said of the show’s dense medical jargon. “But when I think back to the first days of ‘House,’ that was really tough, too. We had extremely long days. It was tough in the first couple of years of the show — it was all new.”
According to Spencer, he underwent a similar situation at the start of “Chicago Fire,” which required both a new knowledge base, as well as the “physical demands” of carrying around 60 pounds of gear that he likened to a “free workout.”
In fact, Spencer admitted it was the physicality of “Chicago Fire” that he found particularly attractive after the end of “House.” “[‘House’] was a very cerebral show and it was a really, really, really, good show. ‘Chicago Fire’ was just something different. It’s not cerebral,” he explained. “It’s more of a character-based show with a lot of action. After eight years of being an intellectual and spewing out medical terms, it was time to do something in the opposite direction. And running around in [firefighter’s] gear for 14 hours seemed like the right thing to do.”
He said goodbye to Chicago Fire by writing an original song
The 10th season of “Chicago Fire” proved to be Jesse Spencer’s last, with his character taking a job in a different city while Spencer confirmed he was exiting the series. “I realized I’ve been doing TV for a long time. I added it up, and I think this year is my 18th year of network television,” Spencer explained to reporters during a Zoom press conference, reported TV Line. “It was a difficult decision because I’ve loved the show from the start, but there are other things that I would like to do in the future, and there’s some family that I need to take care of, and 18 years is a long time.” As he told Variety, “I hate to leave the show because I do love this show, but when the time comes, the time comes.”
When it came time to finally say goodbye to “Chicago Fire,” Spencer drew from his musical side by creating a special song in honor of the show. Following his final episode, Spencer shared the video for a song he wrote, titled “FireBug (si ça te fait plaisir),” which translates to “If it pleases you.”
The lyrics are emotional, with Spencer seemingly addressing both his co-stars and the show’s viewers by singing, “Well that flame forever burns in my heart … just would not have been the same without you all right here.”
He’s played in a band alongside other TV stars
Jesse Spencer was able to meld his musical abilities with his status as a television star when he joined the Band From TV, a loosely-knit group of television actors who formed a band during the mid-2000s. As the Band From TV website pointed out, the group was the brainchild of “Alias” actor Greg Grunberg. In addition to Spencer, core members over the years have included James Denton (“Desperate Housewives”), former “Bachelor” star Bob Guiney, Adrian Pasdar (“Heroes”), and Scott Grimes (“ER”), while Spencer’s “House” co-star, Hugh Laurie, was a founding member. As a video clip of the band in concert demonstrates, Spencer contributed both vocals and violin duties.
“When they asked me to join the band … they had like two guitars or something, and, you know, we don’t need a third guitar, so I busted out the fiddle,” Spencer explained in an interview with Look to the Stars.
Meanwhile, there was more going on that just making music and having fun; as Spencer told Look to the Stars, proceeds from the band’s gigs were donated to the members’ favorite charities. “We don’t earn any money from it whatsoever,” he insisted. In fact, Spencer told Us Weekly, by 2010, Band From TV had “raised more than $2 million for various charities, including the Indiana University Kenya Partnership, which fights HIV/AIDS.”
