Rachel Nichols

Born: January 8 1980
Where: Augusta, Maine, USA

The former model has now graduated to leading roles in movies ranging from horror yarn P2 to the live action GI Jane.

The elder of two children born to a schoolteacher father and fundraising mother, she originally planned for a career on Wall Street.

She excelled at Cony High School (she spent a year studying in France) and then attended New York's Columbia University intent on studying psychology.

Nichols eventually graduated in economics but plans to become a financial analyst were scrapped when she was spotted during a lunch break by a modelling agent.

She was invited to work in Paris and subsequently fronted campaigns for Guess? and Abercrombie & Fitch while also maintaining her studies in college.

At the same time she attended acting classes at Columbia and managed to snag small roles in TV shows as well as a minor part in the movie Autumn in New York.

(one television appearance was that of an orgy-loving restaurant hostess in a 2002 episode of Sex and the City).

Her career took an upturn when she landed the role of Jessica, the dogged school-newspaper reporter, in 2003's Dumb and Dumberer.

Although the movie was a flop, Nichols earned roles in the television series Line of Fire, plus the horror movies, The Amityville Horror and The Woods.

In 2004, she was cast as a rookie special agent assigned to LA's FBI Violent Crimes Unit in the US TV series The Inside and also played computer expert Rachel Gibson in Alias.

(she was being groomed by the show's creator JJ Abrams as a replacement for the star Jennifer Garner but it was cancelled).

In 2007, she starred in Jonathan Mostow's TV sci-fi thriller Them and also returned to horror as an office worker kidnapped by a car park security guard in P2.

(she says she came to a compromise with the film's makers who wanted her to wear no bra or underwear. She wore a Marilyn Monroe-style figure-hugger. "I saved most of my body parts from being exposed," she said.)

Next up is the role of weapons expert Scarlett in the big budget version of GI Joe and a starring role in the next Star Trek movie.