Alexandra Daddario has one of Hollywood's most striking stares, which might be the product
of her laser-sharp focus when it comes to rising to the top of her game.
Here's what you need to know about the "Baywatch" star.
Alexandra Daddario may not be Hollywood royalty, but she is no commoner either.
Alexandra is the daughter of Richard Daddario, the influential lawyer and politician who
led the New York Police Department's counterterrorism unit between 2010 to 2013.
Alexandra's grandfather, Emilio Q. Daddario, was a Democrat who represented Connecticut
in the U.S. Congress between 1959 and 1971 and unsuccessfully ran for governor, according
to The New York Times.
Alexandra grew up in Manhattan and attended the prestigious Brearley School on the Upper
East Side.
She told Riviera magazine in 2010,
"Brearley was high-pressure.
It's an all-girls school, and I really didn't love it.
Girls there were catty and mean [...] I was a dork in high school and did a lot of children's
theater.
All my friends wanted to go to Harvard or Princeton, but all I wanted was to act."
The oldest of three children, Alexandra must have passed her interest onto her little brother,
Matthew, and sister, Catharine, both of whom ended up pursuing acting careers as well.
Speaking on the "Whiskey Ginger Podcast," Alexandra noted that her affluent background
meant she and her siblings grew up going to the theater and other cultural events, fueling
their love for the arts.
Alexandra Daddario was about 10 when a manager spotted her in the audience of a play.
Her parents valued exposing their children to different opportunities, so after the manager
showed interest in Daddario, they began sending her to acting lessons.
Daddario said on the "Whiskey Ginger Podcast,"
"This manager thought I was cute and wanted to send me out to, you know, commercial auditions."
Daddario landed her first job when she was 12, and she told Riviera,
"I was a hand model for Barbie.
It was so exciting.
I kept trying to get my face in the shot."
She continued to book commercial gigs, which included a "Got Milk" ad when she was a teenager
that required her to make out with a boy, she told Interview Magazine.
Even though her career was tough, her parents were supportive of her passion.
In fact, her mother did some modeling before going to law school, so she understood her
daughter's ambitions.
Daddario told Interview,
"When I was little, I thought about becoming a lawyer like my parents, and my mother would
always tell me, 'You can do anything you want — except be a lawyer.'
Not like I couldn't.
[...] But my mom used to model when she was younger, before she went to law school, and
I think she thought it was pretty cool.
I think my parents saw that acting ultimately made me happy."
Alexandra Daddario made her TV debut at 16, when she landed the role of troubled teen
Laurie Lewis on ABC's "All My Children," a character she portrayed for about a year between
2002 and 2003.
She then landed small parts in big shows like "Parenthood" and "The Sopranos."
Because Daddario began to find consistent work when she was still in her teens, her
parents enrolled her in the Professional Children's School, an institution that specializes in
giving working children an academic education.
Her first major role came in 2009, when she snagged the part of Annabeth Chase in Chris
Columbus' "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," sharing the screen with
A-listers Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman.
She told Riviera at the time,
"It's a complete fantasy.
Everything on-set is huge and epic, and you're like, 'How did I get here?'"
That year, Daddario relocated to Los Angeles to focus on film, and she told Riviera,
"I moved here in September [2009] and I've already failed my road test twice [...] I
started taking the bus, because that's what we do in New York, but I quickly learned that
that's not the right thing to do out west."
Daddario continued to land teenager roles in young adult films, portraying the main
character in the 2013 slasher film "Texas Chainsaw 3D," and reprising the role of Annabeth
in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters."
"You walk in with a little more confidence, you know, not that you're an old pro, but
you know what you're doing."
To say that HBO's "True Detective" was a hit would be the world's biggest understatement.
When its first season premiered in January 2014, the show became the network's most-watched
freshman series ever, according to Deadline.
With an average viewership of 11.9 million per episode, the series surpassed the first
seasons of "Six Feet Under" and "Game of Thrones."
Starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as the leads, the crime series featured Alexandra
Daddario as the young mistress of Harrelson's character.
She told Vanity Fair,
"There is nothing better than a really cool mystery: you don't know what's going to happen,
so you keep turning those pages or watching that series."
And according to Daddario, the opportunity actually happened by accident.
As she revealed to Vanity Fair, she initially read for the part of another of Marty Hart's
mistresses, which played a smaller role in the series, but the producers saw that she
could pull off the bolder character.
The part required Daddario to strip down and engage in a rather revealing sex scene with
Harrelson, a risky move that could have had unintended consequences for the rising star
in the sexist world of Hollywood.
Luckily, it showed that Daddario was willing to take on challenging parts.
She told the Daily Beast,
"[I]t created the opposite situation for myself.
Immediately afterwards, I booked a very strong female role in 'San Andreas.'"
Alexandra Daddario, who turned 35 in 2021, has starred in about 30 films and more than
20 TV shows.
As she told Interview,
"I have had the opportunity to do a lot of really tough characters — from 'Percy Jackson'
and even 'Texas Chainsaw,' in a way — they're really tough, good female role models."
"The idea that people are dreaming about me in general is just amazing."
Clearly, Daddario is just getting started.
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