Rachael Leigh Cook, a Minneapolis native, embarked on her career as a model at the tender age of 10, gracing iconic Milk-Bone boxes and Target advertisements nationwide in the United States. Her early modeling endeavors also included a memorable anti-drug television commercial, where she wielded a frying pan to vividly illustrate the devastating consequences of heroin.
As she turned 14, her modeling agency presented her with an opportunity to read for a short film, 26 Summer Street (1996),which marked a pivotal moment in her life, shifting her focus from modeling to acting. When she arrived in Los Angeles later that year, Cook bypassed the traditional audition process and secured her first role in The Baby-Sitters Club (1995),playing the part of a budding entrepreneur.
Cook's impressive acting credentials continued to grow, with appearances in independent and made-for-TV movies, as well as a return to theaters just three months later in the Jonathan Taylor Thomas-starring film Tom and Huck (1995). She divided her time between Minneapolis and Tinseltown, commuting between school events and movie shoots with her mother by her side.
Cook's starlet status was solidified in 1999, when she co-starred alongside Freddie Prinze Jr. in the Pygmalion retelling She's All That (1999). Her on-screen transformation from plain Jane to ravishing beauty earned her several teen-oriented awards and cemented her status as a hot commodity in Hollywood. She went on to sign for a string of plum follow-up roles, including a troubled adolescent in Sylvester Stallone's Get Carter (2000),a frontier gal in Texas Rangers (2001),and the lead in the live-action adaptation of Josie and the Pussycats (2001).
Today, Cook resides primarily in Los Angeles but frequently returns home to visit with friends and family. Her father, Tom, a former stand-up comic, is a social worker in the public school system, and her younger brother, Ben, is an aspiring filmmaker.
