Canadian Idol In early 2005, while in high school, O'Neil auditioned for the third season of
Canadian Idol. The judges were impressed by her vocals, and she made it through to the top 100 round. On the first day, she sang the song "Concrete Angel" by
Martina McBride a cappella and again impressed the judges; but, on the final day of competition, she forgot the words to her chosen song and froze. Nevertheless, the judges were still so impressed by her singing abilities that she continued to the top 32. After scoring the highest number of votes in her semi-final group, again with "Concrete Angel", O'Neil was granted a place in the final 10 of the contest. Although she was highly praised by the judges, O'Neil suffered huge setbacks in both the Top 10 and Top 9 weeks of the finals, as she was voted in both the bottom three and bottom two, respectively. Shocked by this, the judges urged viewers to vote for contestants like Melissa, who clearly had the best vocal abilities. From then on, O'Neil never fell back into the bottom three after delivering consistently praised performances, with judge
Zack Werner declaring that she was "a threat to win the whole thing". On September 7, 2005, O'Neil made it into the final two of the competition, alongside
Rex Goudie, and after more performances, judge Werner stated that the headlines of the next day's newspapers would be "The King [Kalan Porter] is dead, long live the Queen."
Singer Immediately after her win on
Canadian Idol, O'Neil received a congratulatory phone call from the
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. She then signed a recording contract with
Sony BMG Canada and released her first single, "
Alive", which hit stores on October 4, 2005, and debuted at number one on the Canadian singles chart, a position it held for four weeks. The single went on to be certified four-times platinum by the
CRIA. On November 22, 2005, O'Neil's self-titled debut album, ''
Melissa O'Neil'', was released on Sony and debuted at number sixteen on the Canadian albums chart. The second single from her album, "
Let It Go," was released in late 2005 and peaked at number seven on the singles chart. On February 7, 2006, O'Neil embarked on her first solo tour in
North Bay, Ontario, named the Let It Go Tour after her second single. Her support act was her
Canadian Idol runner-up,
Rex Goudie. The third single release from O'Neil's album was "
Speechless", which peaked at number thirty-one. In March 2006, her debut album was certified gold by the
CRIA for 50,000 units shipped, and her first single "Alive" was covered by Becki Ryan in the movie
Flicka. On September 16, 2006 O'Neil returned to the
Canadian Idol stage during the grand finale of its fourth season. Here, she was surprised with the certified-gold-presentation disc of her debut album. In 2007, O'Neil was nominated for a
Juno Award as New Artist of the Year, alongside
Neverending White Lights,
Tomi Swick,
Patrick Watson, and
Eva Avila (the latter, her
Canadian Idol successor); however, Swick took home the award. In 2009, O'Neil became the lead vocalist for the Toronto
funk band
God Made Me Funky. As described by Glenn Sumi, of
NOW Toronto, "After winning the third season of Canadian Idol... O'Neil released a best-selling disc and then promptly began doing musical theatre, with roles in
Dirty Dancing,
High School Musical and the acclaimed Stratford production of
Jesus Christ Superstar."
Musical theatre In the
Toronto, Ontario, production of
Dirty Dancing, O'Neil was a featured singer. O'Neil's appearance as Martha/Maid by the Fire during the 2011 season's
Jesus Christ Superstar was her
Stratford Shakespeare Festival debut. O'Neil was featured as a lead in the Stage West Calgary production of "British Invasion" alongside former lead singer of
The Guess Who, Terry Hatty, and made an appearance in
Camelot. She won the
Dora Award for Outstanding Female Performance for that role. In March 2012, O'Neil made her Broadway debut in
Jesus Christ Superstar, where she played Martha, Maid by the Fire and worked as understudy to the role of Mary Magdalene. In 2013, O'Neil was promoted to play
Éponine. In March 2014, O'Neil returned to Broadway in a revival of
Les Misérables, where she was a member of the ensemble and worked as understudy for the roles of Éponine and
Fantine.
Acting O'Neil has been acting since 2015. She has had recurring roles in the 2015
CBC TV drama called
This Life that was set in Montreal, the
Cole Hauser TV crime series
Rogue, and the musical drama web series,
Lost Generation, which was set in Berlin. The show was originally called
Pulse and had a book and score written by
Duncan Sheik. In December 2014, O'Neil was cast in the starring role of Two / Rebecca / Portia Lin, on the
Syfy TV series space opera
Dark Matter. It was a role she played from 2015 to 2017, for three seasons of the show. In 2018, O'Neil played the role of Suki in
The CW procedural crime drama iZombie created by
Rob Thomas and had another recurring role in the thriller
Condor, a TV remake of
Three Days of the Condor. In October 2018, O'Neil was cast in the role of
LAPD Officer Lucy Chen and Sava Wu in the
ABC television police drama series
The Rookie, where she plays a fellow rookie police officer opposite
Nathan Fillion. ==Personal life==