Bio
Rachael Leigh Cook is an American actress best known for her role as Laney Boggs in the 1999 teen romantic comedy, She's All That.
She also stars as FBI agent Kate Moretti in the police procedural crime drama television series Perception.
Minneapolis native Cook began her career as a model at the age of 10, gracing Milk-Bone boxes and Target ads nationwide in the USA.
She also appeared in a now-famous anti-drug public service announcement called "This Is Your Brain On Drugs" in which, armed with a frying pan, she bashed her way through a kitchen to show the disastrous effects of heroin.
At 14, her modelling agency sent her to read for the short film 26 Summer Street (1996), and changed the course of her life - from that moment on, Cook was hooked on acting.
When she reached LA later that year, Cook nailed her first audition for the part of a budding entrepreneur in The Baby-Sitters Club (1995). She returned to theatres three months later in the Jonathan Taylor Thomas vehicle Tom and Huck (1995), then appeared in independent and made-for-TV movies.
She divided her time between Minneapolis and Tinseltown, shuttling from school events to movie shoots with her mother in tow. Cook's starlet status crystallised in 1999 when she starred opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. in the Pygmalion retelling She's All That (1999).
Follow-up roles included a troubled adolescent in Sylvester Stallone's Get Carter (2000), a frontier gal in Texas Rangers (2001), and the caterwauling lead in the live-action version of Josie and the Pussycats (2001).
In 2000, she was the cover girl for the premier issue of FHM US (March/April issue). Cook also provided the voice for Chelsea Cunningham on the animated series Batman Beyond in the episode "Last Resort" and in the animated film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
In 2002, she was ranked #26 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World".
Cook provided the voice of Tifa Lockhart in the video games Kingdom Hearts II and Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-, as well as the CG movie, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.
She also starred in the video for New Found Glory's 2002 single, "Dressed to Kill". In the video game Yakuza she voices the role of Reina, a beautiful barkeep. She has also appeared in Daniel Powter's Love You Lately.
Cook was later cast in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and the horror movie Descent (2006), and had roles in the big screen adaptation of Nancy Drew (2007), the female lead in the independent sports drama The Final Season (2007), and a small supporting lead in Blonde Ambition (2007).
Cook has also appeared in a number of independent films and in the 2005 television mini-series Into the West, in which she played the role of Clara Wheeler, the only survivor after her family was massacred by Quantrill's Raiders.
She made a three-episode guest appearance in the second season of the teen drama series Dawson's Creek, in 1999, and played the recurring role of Penny Posin in the third season of Las Vegas, in 2005.
Cook now lives primarily in Los Angeles, but she returns home frequently 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.
In early 2001, she met actor Ryan Reynolds and the two immediately hit it off. However, she had to fly to England shortly after to film Blow Dry. Ryan ended up suprising her, pulling out of his filming schedule and following her all the way to London. It was a success and they ended up dating for a year.
She has been married to actor Daniel Gillies since 14 August, 2004. They appeared together in Into the West.
She was ranked #26 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World" (2002) and is 5' 2" (1.57 m) tall.