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
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
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."
Taking Notes
In the screen adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel The Notebook, McAdams goes from mean girl to romantic lead. "It's such an overwhelming love story," McAdams tells PEOPLE. The best part of the film? Meeting Ryan Gosling, who she later began dating. "God bless The Notebook," Gosling tells GQ in 2007 after they split. "It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life."
- 2005
Crash Course
McAdams stars opposite Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in the blockbuster The Wedding Crashers. "I'd always imagined that once I got to this level, life would somehow become really easy," McAdams tells The Hollywood Reporter. "It's actually the opposite. But I tend to think the complexity is a real blessing in a strange way. The scripts I get are a lot better than they used to be."
Seeing Red
Filming the entire thriller Red Eye inside a plane "was incredibly claustrophobic," McAdams tells London's Free Press. "I was literally stuck on the plane for 12 hours every day." During one fight scene, she accidentally smacked her face into a door. "Yeah, that hurt," she tells Entertainment Weekly. "I thought, 'Okay, we're done. Production ends. It's over.' And then I got ice. The Jell-O pop on the fat lip really helped."
Stone Cold Funny
McAdams finishes off a banner year with a delicious role as Sarah Jessica Parker's soon-to-be sister-in-law in the Christmas comedy The Family Stone, which also stars Diane Keaton, Luke Wilson and Claire Danes. "We had so much fun making it," McAdams tells Parade. "We joked, 'We're having such a good time, it can't be any good.' But it was incredible."
- 2006
Civic Duty
Herself an immigrant to the United States (if only temporarily), McAdams and beau Gosling march alongside protestors in L.A. for the "A Day Without Immigrants" protest. Immigrants – both legal and illegal – go on strike that day to show the impact immigration has on the American workforce.
A Time to Chill
After a busy year, McAdams decides to take most of 2006 for herself, before reporting to the set of the 1940s-era film Marriage in the fall. She returns to Canada for some downtime. "I love being able to come home to a place where no one really cares what you do or who you are, and allows me a break from that life," she tells the Hollywood Reporter.
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Photo Credits
BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): Splash News; Everett Collection; Columbia; Fred Prouser/reuters/Landov; New Line Cinema/Zuma; Gemma La Mana/Dreamworks; Zade rosenthal/20th Century Fox; Flynet
- Name
- Rachel McAdams
- Birth Date
- October 07, 1976
- Birth Place
- London, Ontario, Canada
- Heart Monitor
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Ryan Gosling, ex-boyfriend (2004 to 2007)
