Assistant Director Jana Cassidy was a high-ranking official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its Office of Professional Review. (The X-Files Movie)
Profile[]
- The script of The X-Files Movie implies that Jana Cassidy was born in 1958 or thereabouts. For more information, see the Background Check section.
Supervising First OPR Hearing with Scully[]
Following the bombing of a building in Dallas, Texas in 1998, AD Cassidy supervised an OPR hearing at Washington, D.C.'s FBI Headquarters with Special Agent Dana Scully, who had helped to find the bomb and had been near the explosion when it had occurred. The Assistant Director lengthily explained both the Attorney General's pressing need to assign responsibility for the destruction and deaths caused by the bomb, as well as the pressure, that OPR was under, to present an accurate account of the incident to the Attorney General. Stating that the FBI was now aware that five people had died in the explosion, AD Cassidy began to list the five victims, starting with Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud.
She paused, however, when Agent Scully's partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, entered the room, late for the OPR hearing. AD Cassidy soon continued with the list, adding that SAC Michaud had been trying to defuse the bomb and also including three Dallas firemen as well as a young boy. As she began the interview with Scully, AD Cassidy was interrupted by Agent Mulder, who was curious to know whether the firemen and the young boy had been in the building. The Assistant Director politely responded to the interruption by instructively asking Agent Mulder, since he had been unable to be punctual for the hearing, to step outside the room, so that the OPR panelists could hear Scully's account to avoid her being paid the same disrespect. When he ignored her implied orders and stated in confusion that he and Scully had been told the building had been cleared, AD Cassidy assured Mulder that he would get his turn to present his own account. She repeated her request for him to step outside, a polite order that he finally obeyed, and Mulder was indeed soon summoned to re-enter the same OPR room where Scully had been, following her departure from the room.
Questioning Scully at Second OPR Hearing[]
A.D. Cassidy sits with other Assistant Directors during a second OPR hearing with Special Agent Scully.
While Scully was late for a second OPR hearing and had not yet arrived, AD Cassidy leafed through a file and checked her watch. She looked up from her papers when another OPR panelist, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, announced from the door of the hearing room that Agent Scully was about to enter. Immediately following Scully's arrival, AD Cassidy uttered her name in askance, as Skinner took his seat beside the other panelists. After Scully both apologized for her lateness and declared that she had new evidence, the Assistant Director asked Scully what her evidence pertained to. Cassidy watched Agent Scully present a bagful of fossilized bone fragments and, when Scully mentioned that they had been gathered at the bomb site in Dallas, Cassidy asked Scully whether she had returned to Dallas, a question to which Scully replied positively.
AD Cassidy reacted to Scully subsequently claiming that she had reason to believe SAC Michaud may have been involved in the bombing, by telling the FBI agent that her allegations were extremely serious, a fact that Scully acknowledged she was already aware of.
Cassidy later asked Scully if she had conclusive evidence of her claim, something that would connect it to the crime. After Scully hesitantly both answered negatively and revealed, however, that she was, with at least one other person, working towards gathering such evidence, AD Cassidy asked who she was working with and, still hesitating, Scully finally admitted that she was working with Agent Mulder.
Conclusions at Third OPR Hearing with Scully[]
AD Cassidy was later presented with a report from Agent Scully in which the Syndicate's activities were mentioned, including their use of bees and corn crops, and heard a new narrative from Scully at a third OPR hearing with the FBI agent, whose face was now marked by frostbite and small wounds after she had returned from Antarctica. AD Cassidy professed that, in light of both Scully's report and her new narrative, her own official report was incomplete, pending the new facts she was being asked to reconcile.
The Assistant Director accepted that there was now sufficient evidence that a Federal Agent may have been involved in the bombing but was unspecific and reactionary about her own doubts concerning much of Scully's other claims, even after Scully asked her what she found so incredible. She then gradually became more specific about her skepticism, mentioning that Antarctica was a long way from Dallas before stumblingly refusing to submit the report to the Attorney General, due to the seemingly incredible connections it made. She reminded Scully that both bees and corn crops were not quite counted as domestic terrorism and remarked that much of Scully's report was lacking a coherent description of any organization with an attributable motive. She empathized with the ordeal that Scully had recently endured in Antarctica, commenting that it had clearly affected her, but concluded that the OPR panelists were virtually forced to erase the unlikely references to their final report to the Justice Department.
After Scully presented a bee specimen directly to AD Cassidy, the Assistant Director examined the specimen while Scully doubted that the FBI currently had an investigative unit qualified to pursue that particular piece of evidence and, following Scully's subsequent exit from the room, AD Cassidy looked along the OPR panel at AD Skinner with a hard stare. (The X-Files Movie)
Background Check[]
Jana Cassidy was played by Blythe Danner. The film's script describes the character as, "A no-nonsense 40 year-old lawyer cum FBI Agent."
Chris Carter once admitted that casting acclaimed actress Blythe Danner in this role had been "a huge thrill" for him. (The Making of The X-Files Movie)
The FBI review scenes, in which AD Cassidy is involved, were filmed on 25 and 26 June, 1997, and these two days were a highlight of the production for the cast and crew, specifically due to the fact that they were working with Blythe Danner. (The Making of The X-Files Movie)