Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams: Snapshot

Rachel McAdams: Five Fun Facts

1. After college, Rachel McAdams landed her first role in the Italian film My Name Is Tanino and took her first airplane flight. "When [the flight attendants] were offering a newspaper, I was like, 'Do I have to pay you?'" she told Entertainment Weekly. "I just had no idea how anything worked."
2. Before she had an acting contract, Rachel McAdams worked in her local McDonald's. "I gave them three years of my life," she told Elle magazine.
3. When she was 12, Rachel McAdams went to Disney camp but did not enjoy the experience. "The director came up to me and said, 'Maybe you'd be happier in the Shakespeare group,'" she told PEOPLE. "I said, 'I can't do Shakespeare.' So he says, 'Well, you can't sing or dance either!'"
4. Rachel McAdams' mom, Sandy, did not allow her to wear makeup until high school. "I begged and pleaded, and I actually said to my mom, 'My lashes keep falling in my eyes, and it's really awful. I think if I got mascara they would stay on my lids better,'" McAdams told In Style.
5. Unlike most young actresses, Rachel McAdams decided not to move to L.A. "Acting is my job. It's not my life. My life is in Toronto," she told The Sun in July 2005.

Rachel McAdams: Biography

1994

Skater Girl

A competitive figure skater since age 4, McAdams quits at 18 in favor of acting. "Getting up at 5 a.m. was a constant struggle," she tells Elle. "I hung up my boots and haven't picked them up since." That's not to say she doesn't miss the sport. "I miss skating," she tells Parade. "But I used to get so nervous before competitions. I'd wake up in a cold sweat. I don't miss that." She later graduates with honors in drama from Toronto's York University.

2002

September 10

Pie in the Sky

A supporting role in the low-budget film Perfect Pie earns McAdams a Genie Award nomination (Canada's Oscar), which puts her on the Hollywood radar. She goes on to play a teen who gets stuck in Rob Schneider's body in The Hot Chick. "It [was] such a strange little entrance to make," she tells EW. "I guess it could have been an exit as well."

2004

April 30

A Popular Role

To play Regina George, the cliquey queen bee whose regime is toppled by Lindsay Lohan in the box office hit Mean Girls, McAdams gets a taste of high school high life. "Getting to do it the way the popular girls do it was fun: to layer on makeup and have long, straight platinum-blonde hair," she tells In Style. "I certainly didn't look like that in high school."

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