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 the 2004 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. More recently she starred in Guy Ritchie's 2009 adaptation of Sherlock Holmes as Irene Adler.

Rachel 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.