Rise to Fame
Eight weeks in the summer of 2004 is all it took. Mean Girls opened April 30 with McAdams as Regina George, cinema's most quotable bully. The Notebook opened June 25 with her as the romantic lead the country cried over. Playing the villain and the love interest in the same summer is a range demonstration that usually takes a decade. Hollywood immediately crowned her the next Julia Roberts, which she largely ignored.
In the Spotlight
Her 2024 Broadway debut in Mary Jane got a Tony nomination. Send Help (2026), the Sam Raimi horror film she did instead of anything safer, grossed $93 million and hit 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Neither was an obvious move. It turns out she's been ignoring obvious moves since her peak, turning down Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and The Devil Wears Prada at the height of her fame. She does it on purpose.
Side Notes
She was a competitive figure skater from age 4 to 18, turned down elite pairs training in Toronto at 9, and still hasn't moved to Los Angeles. She bikes everywhere around Toronto, runs her house on renewable energy, and spent five years co-running GreenIsSexy.org. Her partner is screenwriter Jamie Linden; they have two kids whose births she kept entirely out of the press. The environmentalism isn't a rebrand. She's been doing it since before anyone was watching.