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Rachel McAdams: Bound For Glory
By : Bret Love
It’s been said that fame is a fickle mistress. The rollercoaster career of Rachel McAdams, the Ontario native who got her first big break starring opposite Lindsay Lohan in 2004’s Mean Girls, is a testament to the veracity of that statement.
Raised in London, Ontario, McAdams began studying acting at an early age, performing in Shakespearean productions at summer theater camp when she was just 13. By the time she was 20 she had turned professional, appearing in the Disney Channel series “The Famous Jett Jackson” while earning her B.F.A. in Theater at Toronto’s York University.
But it was her role in the adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel, The Notebook, that initially endeared the Canadian actress to American audiences. Released in June of 2004, the film proved a summer sleeper, raking in nearly $100 million with its combination of slow-burn Southern romance and three-hankie melodrama. Considering the fact that her other big hit, 2005’s Wedding Crashers, was a romantic comedy, it only seems fair to ask McAdams how she views romance. “You try to be as practical as you can,” she acknowledges, “but my heart always wins the battle with my head. Love takes a lot of time and commitment, and I think it comes down to making a choice that you believe in. Once you’ve made that decision, you don’t hold back; it’s everything and the kitchen sink. I don’t know anything about love, but my parents are still very much in love and I think it takes a lot of work. You have to have passion and a little bit of spit and fire.”
The same could be said of establishing a successful Hollywood career. Wedding Crashers’ whopping $283 million at the box office gave McAdams her third major hit in 14 months, but her next two films—the Wes Craven horror flick Red Eye and the ensemble comedy The Family Stone—were moderate successes at best. At the same time her career seemed to be on the verge of floundering, her romance with Notebook co-star (and fellow Ontario native) Ryan Gosling was making her a near-constant tabloid staple. Suddenly, McAdams’ personal life seemed in danger of overshadowing her professional one.
Today, she insists that the opportunities she’s been afforded as a result of her success outweigh any downsides that come with Hollywood fame. “There’s a lot of pressure,” she admits, “but it’s very flattering. You try to go into movies not thinking about how people are going to react to them. It’s strange to believe any kind of projection outside of yourself, and it’s dangerous to see yourself the way other people do. I basically just put all my eggs into one basket and hope that I will get to work for the rest of my life. For my own sanity I just try to enjoy it and do things that speak to me, and hopefully it’ll all work out. I have faith in the universe, and faith that things will be okay.”
For a while, it seemed as if things might not be okay for McAdams. Her only two films released between January 2006 and April 2009-—period drama Married Life and the direct-to-DVD The Lucky Ones—grossed a combined $2 million, and even the well-reviewed suspense thriller State Of Play (in which she co-starred opposite A-listers Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck) bombed. But two big literary adaptations in the second half of 2009—the $65 million gross of The Time Traveler’s Wife and a $498 million box office take for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes—seemed to steer the Canadian’s career back on track.
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect,” she admits of Sherlock's unique blend of period drama, quirky comedy and thrilling action. “I didn’t realize how big it was until I stepped on the sets: They were just massive! I didn’t know if it would be a satire of Sherlock Holmes or if they would want to boost up the comedy. But it was a really nice balance of the two, quite serious and heart pumping but with humor and light moments, too. And I thought that Robert [Downey Jr.] and Jude [Law] made a wonderful duo. I was supposedly the love interest,” she adds with a laugh, “but it was really Watson.”
The actress’ personal life certainly seems to be in a better place as well. Her ever-changing hair color (she’s a natural blonde) ensures a relatively low profile when she goes out in public. And the 31-year-old beauty is satisfied with her single status—her relationship with Gosling ended for good in 2008 and her love with actor Josh Lucas last year ultimately failed to pan out.
“Relationships take a lot of time, commitment and a choice,” she reasons. “I’ve chosen this path, but it’s not to say I’m not open to love or whatever comes my way.”
The doors in Hollywood continue to be opening for McAdams, with a role opposite Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton in July’s Morning Glory, the latest from The Devil Wears Prada writer Aline Brosh McKenna. And some of Hollywood’s most respected directors are lining up to work with her, including Woody Allen, Terrence Malick and David Fincher. The comely Canadian seems surprisingly down-to-earth for someone who’s been through the It Girl wringer and lived to tell the tale. But she says it all comes down to staying strong and remaining true to who you are. “I just want to keep working and keep experimenting,” she says when asked of her goals for the future. “I want to try a lot of things that I haven’t tried, because I have a certain curiosity for life that drives me and propels me forward. That’s the nicest thing about this past year: I’ve gotten to do so many different genres and people have faith in letting me do things I normally wouldn’tbe allowed to do. That’s exciting, and I hope I get to keep doing that.”
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