Topic: Rachel McAdams

Rachel Anne McAdams (born November 17, 1978) is a Canadian actress. Her breakout role was for portraying the "Queen Bee" Regina George in 2004's hit film Mean Girls. She then starred in the film adaptation of The Notebook and the hit comedy Wedding Crashers. Her other film credits include The Family Stone, Red Eye and The Time Traveler's Wife. And more recently she starred in Guy Ritchie's 2009 adaptation of Sherlock Holmes as Irene Adler.

McAdams was born in London, Ontario, Canada and grew up in the nearby city of St. Thomas. Her father, Lance, is a truck driver, and her mother, Sandra, is a nurse. She has a younger brother, Daniel, and a younger sister, Kayleen. She took up competitive figure skating at the age of four and acting at age 12 at a summer theatre camp in St. Thomas, Ontario named Original Kids. When the company extended to a year-round company (and eventually relocated to London, Ontario), she was invited to continue with them. She attended the Myrtle Street Public School and the publicly-funded secondary school Central Elgin Collegiate Institute in St. Thomas from grade nine to OAC and starred in the Award-winning student production I Live in a Little Town. She graduated from York University in Toronto with Honours and a BFA degree in Theatre in 2001. During her fourth year at York, she played a child in The Piper – a workshop led by a creative team from Toronto's Necessary Angel Theatre Company. She also attended Original Kids Theatre Company in London, Ontario, as well as David Rotenberg's on-camera acting class in Toronto with fellow actors Scott Speedman, Kenneth Mitchell, Polly Shannon and David Sutcliffe. .

McAdams played a leading role in the film The Hot Chick alongside Rob Schneider, but her most noticeable breakthrough role was when she starred as Regina George in 2004's Mean Girls. She was much older than the character she played. McAdams had previously appeared in the Canadian television series Slings and Arrows, co-starring Paul Gross. She played a main role in the first season, but due to her rising stardom was written out of the second season, appearing in only the first episode. She followed Mean Girls with the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel The Notebook, with Ryan Gosling, with whom she would later begin an off-screen romance.