Before fighting fires as Captain Matthew Casey on “Chicago Fire” — one of the best firefighter shows of all time — actor Jesse Spencer starred in nearly 500 episodes of another hit drama, one that hailed from his native Australia. The star spent over 470 episodes on the Australian soap opera “Neighbours,” which started airing in 1985. Spencer joined the cast in September 1994 as Billy Kennedy, the youngest member of a family who moved to the show’s central locale, Ramsay Street.
Spencer continued to be a mainstay on the ensemble series — which focused on the residents of Erinsborough, a fictional Melbourne suburb — until Billy was offered a woodworking apprenticeship in Queensland, which led to the character’s final episode as a regular cast member in 2000. He actually made the decision to leave “Neighbours” on his own in 1999 because he’d grown tired of the role. “I’d been in Neighbours for five years and I’d had enough,” he told Sunday Mercury in 1999. “The storylines were boring and I wasn’t enjoying it any more.”
Jesse Spencer went from soap to med drama to fire procedural
Jesse Spencer wasn’t exactly thrilled with his send-off as Billy Kennedy in “Neighbours,” but his disappointment ultimately proved that leaving the series was right for him at the time. “When I said I was leaving, I hoped they would make Bill’s departure interesting,” Spencer shared with Sunday Mercury. “But he just moves away from Erinsborough, there’s no drama to it. It’s disappointing and typical of the last two years of storylines.”
Alongside Spencer, the soap opera launched several other up and coming stars over the years. Kylie Minogue and Margot Robbie cut their teeth on the long-running series, while household names like Russell Crowe also appeared on the show, which aired for over 9,000 episodes before concluding in 2025.
Four years after Spencer left “Neighbours,” he landed a long-standing role on the American medical drama “House,” turning him into a well-known face in the industry stateside when the series became a hit. After his time at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital came to an end in 2012, he took on the role of Matthew Casey on “Chicago Fire,” a part Spencer played for over 200 episodes before departing as a series regular during Season 10.
