Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams (born November 17, 1978) is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a four-year theatre program at York University in 2001, McAdams initially worked in Canadian television and film productions such as My Name Is Tanino, Perfect Pie (for which she received a Genie Award nomination) and Slings and Arrows (for which she won a Gemini Award). Her first Hollywood movie was the 2002 comedy The Hot Chick. McAdams found fame in 2004 with starring roles in the teen comedy Mean Girls and the romantic drama The Notebook. In 2005 she appeared in the romantic comedy Wedding Crashers, the psychological thriller Red Eye, and the family drama The Family Stone. She was hailed by the media as Hollywood’s new “it girl” and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Rising Star. However, McAdams withdrew from public life in 2006 and 2007. During this time, she turned down leading roles in high-profile films such as The Devil Wears Prada. She made a low-key return to work in 2008, starring in two limited release films: the film noir Married Life, and the road trip movie The Lucky Ones. She returned to prominence in 2009 with appearances in the political thriller State of Play, the science-fiction romance The Time Traveler’s Wife, and the action-adventure film Sherlock Holmes. McAdams’s first star vehicle was the 2010 comedy Morning Glory. In 2011, she starred in Woody Allen’s romantic comedy Midnight in Paris and made a cameo appearance in the action-adventure sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. McAdams starred in 2012’s romantic drama The Vow. In 2013, she will appear in Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, Brian De Palma’s Passion, Richard Curtis’s About Time, and Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man.
Rachel Anne McAdams was born in London, Ontario,and grew up in nearby St. Thomas. Her mother, Sandra (née Gale), is a nurse, and her father, Lance, is a retired truck driver and furniture mover. McAdams has two younger siblings: Kayleen, a celebrity make-up artist, and Daniel. She began figure skating at the age of four but turned down an opportunity to move to Toronto at the age of nine for pairs training. Skating then became merely “a hobby”. She competed in the sport until the age of 18, winning regional awards. She has since said that skating prepared her for physical acting, because it trained her to be “in tune” with her body. McAdams was educated at Myrtle Street Public School and, later, Central Elgin Collegiate Institute. She did not enjoy school. Nonetheless, she played an active role in student life. In addition to playing sports, McAdams served on the student council, participated in the Crimestoppers program and was a member of the Peer Helping Team. She worked at a McDonalds restaurant during the summer holidays for three years.McAdams first developed an interest in performing when she was seven and, while her parents did not discourage her, they did not “go out and find her an agent”. She attended both Disney and Shakespeare summer camps as a child. From the age of twelve, McAdams appeared in Original Kids Theatre Company, London productions. In her late teens, she directed children’s theatre productions. She was also involved in school stage productions, most notably winning a performance award at the Sears Ontario Drama Festival. She was inspired by a married couple who taught English and Drama respectively in grades 11 and 12. They encouraged her to lose her inhibitions when performing. McAdams intended to take Cultural Studies at university before being persuaded by her drama teacher that a professional acting career was a viable option. She enrolled in York University’s four-year theatre program and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts honours degree in 2001. While at university, McAdams worked with the Toronto-based Necessary Angel Theatre Company.
McAdams made her first onscreen appearance in Shotgun Love Dolls, a 2001 MTV pilot filmed during spring break from York University. McAdams also made her first feature film appearance that year in My Name is Tanino. The Italian-Canadian co-production was filmed in Sicily and it marked the 22-year-old actress’s first time on an airplane. McAdams later earned a Genie Award nomination in her native Canada for her role as a teenage Wendy Crewson in Perfect Pie. Her first Hollywood movie was 2002’s The Hot Chick which McAdams has described as a “huge milestone” in her career. She played a catty high school student who swaps bodies with a small-time criminal. The Los Angeles Times felt she “emerges as a young actress of much promise” while the Daily Mail described McAdams and Anna Faris as “talents to watch, but they are let down by everything around them”. The film grossed $54 million worldwide. McAdams then returned to Canada to star in Slings and Arrows, a mini-series about backstage theatre life. She was written out of the second season of the program following her success in the United States. She received two Gemini Award nominations for her work on the program, with one win.
McAdams’ breakout role came in the 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls. The 25-year-old was cast as Regina George, a malicious teenage queen bee, and she looked to Alec Baldwin’s performance in Glengarry Glen Ross for character inspiration. USA Today praised her “comic flair” while The Daily Telegraph found her “delightfully hateful”. The San Francisco Chronicle felt that “McAdams brings glamour and magnetism to Regina, but also the right hint of comic distance. The film grossed $129 million worldwide and earned McAdams two MTV Movie Awards. Mean Girls later reached number 12 in an Entertainment Weekly list of the Greatest Ever High School Movies. Tina Fey, who wrote the script and co‑starred in the film, has credited McAdams with teaching her to act for a camera rather than an audience: “She’s a film actor. She’s not pushing. And so I kind of learned that lesson from watching her.” McAdams’s second role of 2004 was in the romantic drama The Notebook, a film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s novel. She played a wealthy Southern belle who has a forbidden affair with Ryan Gosling’s character, a poor laborer. McAdams spent time in Charleston, South Carolina prior to filming to familiarize herself with the accent, and took ballet and etiquette classes. Filming took place in late 2002 and early 2003. Although Gosling and McAdams became romantically involved in 2005, they had a combative relationship on set. “We inspired the worst in each other,” Gosling has said. “It was a strange experience, making a love story and not getting along with your co-star in any way.” At one point, Gosling asked director Nick Cassavetes to “bring somebody else in for my off-camera shot” because he felt McAdams was being uncooperative.The New York Times praised the “spontaneous and combustible” performances of the two leads while Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was won over by the “beauty and clarity” of McAdams’s performance. The Chicago Tribune declared her “a real discovery” who “infuses young Allie with that radiant, breathlessly winning ingenue grace and charm that breaks hearts”.The film grossed over $115 million worldwide. McAdams won an MTV Movie Award and four Teen Choice Awards.Entertainment Weekly has said that the movie contains the All-Time Best Movie Kiss while the Los Angeles Times has included a scene from the film in a list of the 50 Classic Movie Kisses. The Notebook has appeared on many Most Romantic Movies lists. “I’m so grateful to have a film that people respond to in that way,” McAdams told Elle in 2011. “It was a big deal”. 2005 saw McAdams star in three films. In the comedy Wedding Crashers, McAdams played Claire Cleary, the daughter of an influential politician and a love interest for both Owen Wilson and Bradley Cooper’s characters. McAdams listened repeatedly to Landslide by Fleetwood Mac to prepare for emotional scenes and Wilson has said the song made her cry immediately: “It was like turning on a faucet”. She trained for a sailing certification for a boating sequence because her character was said to be an accomplished sailor. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times felt McAdams “makes the most of her underdeveloped character” and “grows more appealing with every new role”. Variety found her “a beguiling presence” who “actually creates a real character – a rarity for females in one of these lad-mag escapades”. From a production budget of $40 million, the film grossed over $285 million worldwide. McAdams next appeared opposite Cillian Murphy in Red Eye, a Wes Craven thriller about a young hotel manager held captive aboard a red-eye flight. Craven has said McAdams was the only actress he considered for the part. She was drawn to the relatable qualities of her character: “She was not some sweaty, tank-top-wearing, Uzi-carrying super woman”. Variety found her “increasingly impressive” while Roger Ebert asserted that “she brings more presence and credibility to her role than is really expected; she acts without betraying the slightest awareness that she’s inside a genre. Her performance qualifies her for heavy-duty roles.” Upon release, the film, which was made on a budget of $26 million, earned over $95 million at the worldwide box office. A supporting role in the seasonal family drama The Family Stone was McAdams’s final film appearance of 2005. The film, an ensemble with Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, and Claire Danes, gave McAdams an opportunity to play a disheveled, sardonic sister, rather than the usual “obvious” girlfriend or wife roles. She was eager to work with Keaton and remarked, “It’s never about line counts for me. It’s about the people I get to work with.” Variety noted that “a deglammed but still radiant McAdams proves once again that she’s the real deal, delivering a deliciously feisty performance”. The New York Times felt that her “engaging screen presence holds your attention and sympathy despite the handicap presented by her character’s personality.” The film was a commercial success: it cost $18 million to make and grossed over $92 million worldwide.
At this point in her career, McAdams was hailed as “the next Julia Roberts” and the new “Hollywood it girl”. Vanity Fair invited McAdams, along with Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley, to appear on their March 2006 cover, the annual Hollywood issue. Upon arrival on the photo set, McAdams discovered it was a nude session and left. She later parted ways with her publicist who had failed to inform her in advance. Knightley later recounted, “Quite early on Rachel just said, ‘No, I’m not into that.’ She’s a lovely girl, and I really respect her for doing that.” When asked about the incident in 2008, McAdams had “no regrets”. McAdams withdrew from public life in 2006 and 2007, taking time off to focus on herself and her family. “It was the right thing for me to do at the time,” she later said. “If you want to tell stories as truthfully as possible, you have to have a normal, boring existence.” During this period, the actress turned down roles in The Devil Wears Prada, Casino Royale, Mission: Impossible III and Get Smart. In February 2006, she made an once-off stage appearance in The Vagina Monologues at St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Toronto to raise funds for V-Day.Also that year, McAdams received a Rising Star Award nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and hosted the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement. McAdams returned to work in 2008, appearing in two limited release films. In the film noir Married Life, she played Kay, a young 1940s widow who wins the affections of two older men, played by Pierce Brosnan and Chris Cooper. In preparation for the role, McAdams studied old films, particularly those of Kim Novak. She has said the film shoot reenergized and re-inspired her and made her eager to work more often. Entertainment Weekly found McAdams “a particularly delightful vision after her two-year intermission”. Variety also bemoaned her break from the big screen but felt that, despite a performance of “tender feeling”, “her natural vivaciousness and spontaneity are straightjacketed” by the film noir format. The film was a box-office failure. It grossed just over $2 million worldwide, failing to recoup its production budget of $12 million. The Lucky Ones, a story about three Iraq War soldiers on a brief road trip back in the United States, was McAdams’s second film of 2008, and she co‑starred alongside Tim Robbins and Michael Pena. She trained at a real boot camp, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, prior to filming. McAdams, speaking in 2011, said that the character of Colee was “probably one of my favorite characters I’ve ever played.” The New York Times found her “luminous as always”[86] while Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times hailed the performance as “her coming of age as an actress”.”Previously she has been seen mostly as a hot chick or an idealized sweetheart”, he wrote. “Here she is feisty, vulnerable, plucky, warm, funny … Watch the poignance of the scene when she meets her boyfriend’s family.” Entertainment Weekly found her “feisty, gorgeous, and as mercurial as a mood ring”. The Lucky Ones is the least commercially successful film of McAdams’s career as of 2012, having grossed just $266,967 worldwide.
