Me at three years old

I grew up in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma County, California. I really feel like I had a great childhood. Every year on my birthday, my parents would put together a huge setup in our backyard around the pool. My dad would put up a tent so my friends and I could camp out after watching scary movies and playing games in our living room. Then late at night while we were trying to sleep, my dad would sneak outside and start scratching the outside of the tent and making noises to scare us. He couldn't scare me, though -- not after repeating this same trick for ten years straight!

I was a real tomboy back then. I loved to play in the dirt and collect tadpoles from the creek. And I'll never outgrow my love for playing football with my family. That's too much fun. In high school I played softball, ran track and was a cheerleader. I graduated a year early by taking college-level courses at a local junior college. I was very eager to get out of school and start a career, and school just seemed like a waste of time to me. So by the time I turned 18, I had my real estate license and had already been living on my own for a year with two girlfriends from school. It was a lot of fun, but I felt like there was something more in store for me. Soon I decided to move to LA with a friend to pursue an acting career. I began taking acting classes right away, and spent the first month of my new life sleeping on a couch in the house I was sharing with some new friends.

At four

I was on the
cheerleading squad, 1987