All Saints: profiles


Sam Healy…

Sam's character Jaz is the only non-medical staff member of the permanent cast of All Saints.

"Jaz is an incredibly determined character. Her role in the hospital is different to the other main characters," Sam says. "As the ward clerk, Jaz takes her work very seriously and has great pride in her ability to make things run smoothly.

"Because she is younger she feels an extra pressure to work harder to prove herself."

Sam says she is very conscious of not wanting Jaz to come across to viewers as just another young 'party girl' stereotype. Jaz has had a tough upbringing and is working very hard to pursue a career.

Sam was born and raised in Rockhampton, Queensland.

At the end of high school, she moved to Brisbane for the Bachelor of Arts (Drama) course at the Queensland University of Technology.

During the course Sam did some commercials and extra work.

After graduating in 1996 she, like the majority of her university classmates, moved to Sydney because of the increased opportunities for work.

Through 1997, Sam did the rounds of auditions, landing some commercial work, guest roles on Children's Hospital and Wildside, and a role in the film The Sugar Factory.

"I've had a wonderfully warm and positive entrance into the industry and I consider myself so lucky to have been given these opportunities so early after graduating," Sam says.

She admits to being initially apprehensive about the prospect of a long-term role when her agent encouraged her to go for the All Saints audition.

"It is difficult in your first year out from university and you really are not sure what roles might be out there and you have to be prepared to commit yourself for a couple of years," she says.

"The past year has been a great learning curve. My real task now as an actor is to concentrate on honing my technical skills for working in a television studio environment."

Since leaving All Saints, Sam Healy has guest starred in Water Rats, Farscape, The Lost World, and had a re-occuring role on the syndicated action series BeastMaster.

…as Jaz Hillerman

As Ward Clerk, Jaz is the traffic cop, receptionist, secretary, gatekeeper, computer expert, fundraiser and office manager rolled into one. It's a tremendously busy and important job and one which is often taken for granted by nurses, doctors, patients and visitors. But, without someone as capable and organised as Jaz, the ward simply could not function. Jaz brings another skill to the job — her world class ability to gossip. If you want to know what is happening anywhere in All Saints Western General, just ask Jaz and watch the infamous Ward Clerk grapevine swing into action.

Jaz grew up in the local area and was raised by her mother, who works at a shirt manufacturing company. After leaving school in Year 10, Jaz worked for two years as a supermarket 'checkout chick'. Jaz was always determined to escape the poverty cycle and — unlike many of her school friends who were pregnant, single and jobless by age 15 — she put herself through an evening TAFE course in office administration while working days. It was a tough slog, and she received little support from her mother and her mother's hard-drinking de facto.

Jaz is efficient and brimful of emotional intelligence. To her, all people are equal. She has a healthy disrespect for authority, and treats the bigwig consultants just like she treats the lowliest ancillary staff member. Everyone loves Jaz's breezy good humour and youthful energy.

When viewers first met Jaz she was simply too energetic and too hungry for life to settle on the one guy for very long. Jaz was a party animal, although she was still quite inexperienced and naive and shared many young women's dreams of getting married and living happily ever after.

Her life was turned upside down when her first serious boyfriend (Danny) raped her. Jaz was devastated and turned to Terri and her other friends on the ward to help her come to terms with the ordeal.

And just as she thought her life was getting back to something resembling normality, she discovered she was pregnant as a result of the rape.