Alexandra Daddario

It's a long way from dreaming about being Cosette in "Les Miserables" to starring in a big-budget studio franchise, but Alexandra Daddario had the talent and drive to make her dreams come true. The native New Yorker honed her skills at the Professional Children's School but didn't land her first role until she was 16, when she was cast as rebellious teen Laurie Lewis on "All My Children" (ABC, 1970-2011; TOLN 2013- ). Back-to-back supporting roles in Noah Baumbach's bitter Brooklyn drama "The Squid and the Whale" (2005) and Ethan Hawke's directorial debut "The Hottest State" (2006) provided small but memorable showcases, and led to her recurring role on the cable procedural "White Collar" (USA, 2009-14).

In 2010 the striking actress beat out hundreds of other young hopefuls for the role of demigod Annabeth in "Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief," based on author Rick Riordan's popular fantasy adventure series. After detours into comedy (the Farrelly Brothers' 2011 "Hall Pass") and music (Imagine Dragons' 2012 video for "Radioactive"), Daddario surfaced in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" (2013) and "Texas Chainsaw 3D" (2013). Versatile and ambitious, Alexandra Daddario was on the verge of something great.

Born at the tail end of the '80s to two New York City lawyers, Daddario was attracted to the theater from a young age. She grew up going to Broadway shows - by her account she saw "Les Miserables" no less than a dozen times - and sang along to Ariel's watery warbling in "The Little Mermaid" (1989). After switching from The Brearley School, a private girls-only school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, to the Professional Children's School, Daddario began to realize that since her singing talents were marginal, acting might be a better option. Her studying paid off when she landed her first role in 2002 on "All My Children" as Laurie Lewis, the requisite troubled teen that parties to forget her past. After appearing in over 40 episodes of the long-running soap, Daddario left the show in 2003 and laid low for two years before briefly popping up in "The Squid and The Whale" and "The Hottest State." Though neither movie gave her more than a scene or two, Daddario's model looks and intriguing talent were enough to propel her into a steady stream of film and TV appearances, including a 2009 stint on "White Collar."

The start of a new decade brought Daddario's burgeoning career to new heights. Despite being a self-professed 'fraidy cat (she claimed to be barely able to sit through Vin Diesel's 2000 movie, "Pitch Black"), Daddario landed her screams on cue in her first horror movie, the slasher flick "Bereavement" (2010). Her next film, "Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief," offered two other firsts leading role and first franchise. In the film, which was adapted from the successful young adult series, Daddario portrayed the resourceful, intelligent Annabeth Chase, demigod daughter of the goddess Athena. Though the CGI-heavy film grossed just $95 million in the United States, its worldwide haul of $226 million led to the less-successful "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters."

Having added horror and fantasy to her resume, Daddario took on comedy as an amorous babysitter in "Hall Pass," starring Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis as two bored husbands whose wives give them free reign for one week. The adaptable Daddario later appeared as a puppet-bearing drifter in the music video for "Radioactive," the hit song by alternative rockers Imagine Dragons, and portrayed a long-lost cousin of Leatherface in "Texas Chainsaw 3D."