Paramount+’s “Lioness” is gritty, intense, and a vastly different beast to the other Taylor Sheridan TV shows which revolve around ranches, oil, and familial drama. The action-thriller sees Zoe Saldaña’s Joe McNamara lead a covert team of CIA operatives as they untangle global threats from the inside. Each season sees her recruit a new operator, but the core team always stays the same — including Bobby, the leader of the Quick Reaction Force.
If the fierce and methodical fighter looks familiar, that’s because she’s played by actor Jill Wagner. The star was one of the co-hosts of ABC’s endurance gameshow, “Wipeout,” from 2008 to 2014. Wagner was the one interviewing the contestants after they completed (or failed) the course. But for those not interested in seeing people fling themselves across inflatable obstacle courses, the actor is more recognizable for playing one of the “Teen Wolf” villains, hunter Kate Argent in Season 1. She later became a Werejaguar after fighting Peter Hale (Ian Bohen) and resurfaced in Seasons 3, 4, and 6.
In 2019, Wagner was also cast as the lead in Hallmark’s “Mystery 101” series of TV movies as Amy Winslow, an English Literature professor who helps a local detective solve bizarre crimes in the fictional town of Garrison, Washington. The seven movies are light-hearted fun, and a far cry away from her role as Bobby in “Lioness.”
Jill Wagner was the one who pitched Lioness to Taylor Sheridan
“Lioness” wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Jill Wagner, and she earned her executive producer credit for pitching the show itself to Taylor Sheridan. When speaking to Parade ahead of the show’s second season, she said: “My husband, David [Lemanowicz], was the one who told me about the Lioness program. From that moment on, I knew there was a story to tell. It took about five years, but I never gave up.”
It’s a concept that means a lot to Wagner, since her aforementioned husband serves in the army, and her family has a military background. But her actual role as Bobby also comes from her continued friendship with Sheridan, as he used to be her acting coach. She added: “Taylor promised to write me a role that would challenge me as an actress, something I’d never done before. Boy, was he ever right. The whole reason ‘Lioness’ came about came from my desire to play a woman in the military.”
Bobby commands the respect of the entire QRF team in the Paramount+ series, even if she frequently butts heads with other operatives like Kyle McManus (Thad Luckinbill), especially when he crosses a few ethical-slash-moral boundaries. But Wagner’s performance was the result of speaking to “real-life” lionesses and basing the character on those women to make her seem more of an authentic soldier.