Rachel Anne McAdams

• Breakthrough roles
McAdams' first on-screen appearance was in 2001's My Name is Tanino. She earned a Genie Award nomination in her native Canada in 2002 for her role as a teenage Wendy Crewson in Perfect Pie. Her first Hollywood movie was 2002's The Hot Chick, in which she played a catty high school student who swaps bodies with a small-time criminal. She later described the film as a "huge milestone" in her career. She then returned to Canada to play a recurring part in the dramedy cable series Slings and Arrows.
Her breakout role came in 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey. The 25 year-old was cast as teenage Regina George, a malicious queen bee. Mean Girls topped the US box office and was a hit amongst critics who drew comparisons to 1995's Clueless. McAdams herself received favourable reviews, with USA Today praising her "comic flair".
Her second role of 2004 was in The Notebook, a film adaption of Nicholas Sparks' novel. She and Ryan Gosling played a young 1940s couple separated by circumstance. Despite a "treacly" storyline, critics were won over by Gosling and McAdams, with The New York Times remarking, "Their performances are so spontaneous and combustible that you quickly identify with the reckless sweethearts, who embody an innocence that has all but vanished from American teenage life. And against your better judgment, you root for the pair to beat the odds against them." It was a sleeper hit and McAdams was nominated for nearly a dozen awards, mostly at the MTV and Teen Choice Awards. "I'm so grateful to have a film that people respond to in that way," she told Elle magazine in 2011. "It was a big deal".