Sara Paxton

Born: April 25 1988

Where: Los Angeles, California
The former model is probably best known for the title role in the children's mermaid adventure Aquamarine.

Other big screen appearances range from the horror Return to Halloweentown to the spoof Superhero Movie.

The only daughter of a Mexican dentist and a businessman (who is distantly related to the actor Bill Paxton), Paxton was acting at school from an early age.

Early roles included musical theatre and she also appeared in TV adverts before landing her first film role - a small part in the 1997 Jim Carrey comedy Liar Liar.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, she appeared in a number of minor television and film roles, including a guest starring role on the Disney Channel show, Lizzie McGuire.

In 2003, Paxton starred in RL Stine's Haunted Lighthouse, a short 3-D film attraction that still plays at several theme parks across the United States.

Paxton's first major role was in the teen comedy-drama and she was was subsequently cast in the Emmy-nominated lead role of the TV series, Darcy's Wild Life, playing Darcy Fields, a girl who works as a rural vet.

In 2005, she starred in the teen drama Aquamarine, in which she played a mermaid, opposite Emma Roberts.

At the same time she signed a record deal and also unsuccessfully applied to the University of Southern California's film studies program.

Subsequent appearances ranged from a binge drinking student in The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker to Sydney White, a college-set comedy starring Amanda Bynes and Matt Long.

Recent work includes Superhero Movie, alongside Leslie Nielsen and Drake Bell.