Leslie Silva

Juilliard-trained Leslie Silva seemed cut out for the stage, her wide eyes, expressive features and commanding presence making for an enviable appeal, but the actress would land a regular television role as Doctor Helen Reynolds on the hit NBC drama "Providence" in 1999, less than four years after her professional stage debut. On the series, Silva played the head of the low-income medical clinic that employs plastic surgeon to the stars Dr Sydney Hansen (Melina Kanakaredes) upon her return to her titular hometown from Hollywood. Dr Reynolds often brought the idealistic Syd back to earth, as well as serving as her loyal friend and an especially proficient co-worker. As the dedicated and caring, but also tough and uncompromising medico, Silva offered impressive work, her skillful portrayal nuanced enough to keep the character from treading into the two-dimensional stereotype of the hard-nosed and ambitious African-American woman all-too-familiar on contemporary television.

Silva's previous television credits include guest appearances on the CBS sitcom "Cosby" in 1997 and as a nun on a 1998 two-part episode of NBC's police drama "Homicide: Life on the Street". She made her professional stage debut in a 1995 Shakespeare Theater production of "Macbeth" in Washington DC and starred in Sam Shepard's one-act play "Chicago", for New York's Signature Theater in 1996. She appeared Off-Broadway in "Edmond" and starred as Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Silva has additionally worked in theater with Anna Deavere Smith, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory and made her feature debut with a brief role as a process server in the romantic comedy "Fools Rush In" (1997).