Although she has worked steadily since moving to Los Angeles almost 14 years ago, actress Heather Stephens is now enjoying her first starring role on a major network.
The Blue Hill native is part of the ensemble cast of the ABC drama “The Forgotten,” which airs at 10 tonight.
“The Forgotten” tells the story of a group of volunteers — known as The Forgotten Network — who seek to identify nameless murder victims, and perhaps in the process discover who killed them, after the police have moved on to other cases. It is their hope to offer closure to the victim’s friends and family.
Stephens, 31, plays Lindsey Drake, a high school science teacher who brings scientific acumen to the group.
“Lindsey’s husband committed a very horrific, very public crime, and she joined the Network as a form of penance,” Stephens explained. “She brings to the group her doggedness, her patience, her empathy toward victims.”
Stephens tested for Lindsey during the original casting of the pilot. Reiko Aylesworth (“24”) got the role, then left, and the character was offered to Stephens.
“I really loved the character of Lindsey when I read the original script,” she said. “The vulnerability and rawness she is experiencing as well as her determination to make up for the crimes of her husband through service to others excited me.”
Stephens enjoys that the amateurs in The Forgotten Network are imperfect people.
“I like that Lindsey was allowed to be [emotional] and not have to hide it because of the confines that can come with playing the role of a cop or a lawyer,” she said. “Those roles can sometimes become a bit removed from the emotion of what’s going on.”
Stephens, who has largely been doing film roles the past few years, has enjoyed her transition back to series TV.
“This has been a joy, because my castmates are generous, sweet people,” she said. “That’s not always the case.”
Stephens enjoys the stability of TV.
“I have a schedule, and know what I’m doing week to week,” she said. “That isn’t the case with film, so it’s harder to plan your life.”
Stephens the veteran actress is quite a different person than the teenager who graduated from high school in Newton, Mass., then moved West “with just my bicycle and my dream,” she said, laughing.
At the time, Stephens was working from a book on how to break into films. It said she needed publicity head shots, so she hopped on her bike and rode from Santa Monica, where she was living, to a photographer in L.A., which took a couple of hours.
“Then I wiped the soot off my face and had my head shots taken,” she said. “And those remain the best ones I’ve ever had done.”
Those head shots got her an agent, and he got Stephens a role in the 1997 film “Lost Highway,” where she learned about filmmaking from auteur of the bizarre David Lynch.
“He was really lovely,” she said. “He showed me how the camera worked, and had me look through the camera after he’d framed the shot. It was an ideal first film experience.”
Stephens looks back and shakes her head at how naive she was in those days.
“I was really, really lucky in those days,” she said. “When you’re a kid, it doesn’t occur to you that you’re going to fail.”
Since then, she has had quite a variety of roles. Her previous co-starring role came in the 2001 series “Men, Women & Dogs” on The CW. She had recurring roles on “Desperate Housewives” and “Saved.” Her most recent film was this year’s “Messengers 2: The Scarecrow,” with “Father v. Son” and “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend” both due out within the next year.
Stephens said that her minister father, Charles Stephens, and her stepmother still summer in Blue Hill, and that she goes back “every once in a while.”
But now she’s busy with “The Forgotten.” The cast and crew are filming the fifth episode of the 13 to which ABC is committed. They will find out in late October if the show will be picked up for the remaining nine episodes of a full season.
“The Forgotten” is up against Jay Leno and fellow rookie “The Good Wife,” starring Julianna Margulies. It should help that Jerry Bruckheimer is an executive producer of Stephens’ show.