Once she decided to become an actress, Ali Larter swiftly became caught up in the late '90s surge of teen-oriented entertainment. A native of Cherry Hill, NJ, Larter began modeling at age 13. After
seven years as a cover
girl and a globe-trotting Ford model, she opted to move to Los Angeles to set her sights on acting, and soon landed guest star roles on several TV series, including a two-episode stint on the
WB's
hit teen drama Dawson's Creek in 1998. Quickly making the
jump to movies, Larter co-starred in the high school gridiron
hit Varsity Blues (1999) as an alluring, ambitious cheerleader with eyes for Dawson's Creek heartthrob James Van der Beek's quarterback. Though her next two movies, Drive Me Crazy (1999) and The
House on Haunted Hill (1999), were not as successful, Larter's status as an up-and-coming young movie actress was enhanced by the sleeper success of teen horror film Final Destination (2000), in which she sported a brunette hair color to suit her artist character's gothic leanings. The following
summer, Larter could be seen -- this
time playing characters closer to her own age -- in two more
high-profile releases for the PG-13 set: first as Reese Witherspoon's possibly-homicidal sorority
sister in the comedy Legally Blonde; and later, as the main squeeze of Colin Farrell, one of the titular train robbers in American Outlaws.