Career
In 1987, at age 22, Forbes landed the contract role of Sonni Carrera Lewis on the daytime soap opera Guiding Light. The role was expanded to a dual role, with a second character, Solita Carrera, added. Forbes was a cast member for three years and in 1990 earned a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for her performance. She then continued in theater and began appearing in small guest roles on television to raise her profile. She went on to make guest appearances on a few other TV shows before landing the recurring role of Ensign Ro Laren in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation invited Forbes to reprise Ro in the spin-off series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine but Forbes declined the offer and decided to focus on a career in films. She received praise, as well as a Saturn Award nomination from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, for her performance as photographer Carrie Laughlin in the 1993 thriller Kalifornia. This was followed with the lead female role in the 1994 black comedy Swimming with Sharks as well as supporting roles in films such as Roadflower, Just Looking (1995), and John Carpenter's 1996 science fiction/action sequel Escape from L.A.
She continued performing on television during this period, with guest spots on Seinfeld, The Outer Limits and Star Trek: The Next Generation, to which she returned to tie up the Ro Laren storyline in the series' penultimate episode.
In 1995, she played one of the leads in J. S. Cardone's crime thriller Black Day Blue Night, alongside Mia Sara and Gil Bellows. The reviews for Black Day Blue Night were positive. Without breaking new grounds, they highlighted its strengths as a well-executed, low-budget noir with engaging performances. Greg Evans of Variety liked the film and of Forbes performance he said that it was "compellingly hard-bitten" and "outdistance the material."
In 1996, Forbes joined the cast of NBC's popular police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, playing chief medical examiner Julianna Cox. She remained with the show for two years then was let go as part of a major cast overhaul (the series was canceled after one more season). However, she reprised her role in the 2000 TV special Homicide: The Movie.
That same year, Forbes became a regular on the ABC series Wonderland but it was pulled from the air after only two episodes. Forbes was next seen in a recurring role on the police drama The District.
She was subsequently given roles in films such as 2001's Perfume and 2002's American Girl as well as the 2001 British television film Messiah (for which she studied British sign language for a week) and its sequel installments: Messiah 2: Vengeance is Mine in 2002 and Messiah III in 2003. During the 2002–2003 TV season, Forbes played the recurring character of presidential aide Lynne Kresge on the second season of the action series 24.
She followed her role on 24 with a guest spot on Alias then went on to play Admiral Helena Cain in three episodes of the re-imagining of the classic sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica as well as appearing in the television film Battlestar Galactica: Razor. She followed this up with a recurring role as Agent Samantha Brinker on the drama Prison Break and guest starred on Boston Legal and Lost.
Forbes starred as the lead in the adaptation of the comic-book Global Frequency, the single produced episode of which leaked online the following year, eight months after the series failed to be picked up by Warner Bros. networks.
Forbes returned to British television screens with guest roles in both Holby City and as a Mossad agent in Waking the Dead. In 2008, Forbes starred in two HBO drama series; In Treatment, portraying the wife of the central character, and in True Blood as a Maenad named Maryann Forrester.
She reprised her semi-regular roles in both series in their respective second seasons in 2009 as well as joining the cast of the Canadian psychological drama series Durham County for its second season as Dr. Penelope Verity.
Forbes played the role of Mitch Larsen in the American television series The Killing, a 2011 remake of the Danish crime series Forbrydelsen. Forbes appeared as Retro Girl in the TV series Powers. She also landed a prominent supporting role in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.
Forbes subsequently played Valerie Edwards in the TV series Berlin Station that aired on Epix from 2016 to 2019. Her character was a no-nonsense administrator who serves as a Berlin Station Internal branch chief.
She appeared in the first season of the ABC drama Big Sky as matriarch Margaret Kleinsasser followed by her appearance as Dr. Veronica Fuentes in the fourth season of New Amsterdam.
In 2023 Forbes reprised her role of Ro Laren in the 3rd season of Star Trek: Picard where the character was eventually killed by the Changelings in episode 5 "Imposters"
