For just a few years within the Nineties, it felt like Larisa Oleynik was in all places. Greatest referred to as the titular character on the Nickelodeon present The Secret World of Alex Mack, wherein she performed a teenage lady who acquires unusual powers after a chemical incident, she additionally starred within the motion pictures 10 Issues I Hate About You and The Child-Sitters Membership and took on recurring roles in period TV staples like Boy Meets World and third Rock from the Solar.
Since she was such a well-recognized presence in that decade, you could be shocked to study that Oleynik has stayed almost as busy within the years that adopted. Preserve studying to seek out out what The Secret World of Alex Mack star is so far at age 41.
READ THIS NEXT: He Performed Ron on A Totally different World. See Darryl M. Bell Now at 58.
Simply as her profession was peaking, Oleynik determined to take a break from performing and walked away from a deal for a fifth season and an Alex Mack characteristic movie to concentrate on her training. The daughter of an anesthesiologist and a nurse, she graduated from New York’s Sarah Lawrence School with a liberal arts diploma in 2004.
“After 4 years of going to work on a regular basis on that present, I used to be prepared for one more type of problem,” Oleynik stated in an interview with Footlights. “I wished to know if I may do one thing else so I went to school to determine it out.”
Thankfully for followers, Oleynik discovered that point away renewed her zest for performing. Since returning to the career, she has performed quite a lot of roles in smaller movies and TV sequence, together with Mad Males and Fairly Little Liars. In 2020, she co-starred with That Factor You Do‘s Tom Everett Scott within the Netflix household sequence The Therapeutic Powers of Dude.
Oleynik, who started her performing profession on the stage in 1989 enjoying Cosette alongside a younger Rider Robust’s Gavroche in a manufacturing of Les Misérables, has additionally continued to behave in theater productions, together with the Off-Off-Broadway musical Who’s Your Baghdaddy? and playwright and former That is Us supervising producer Bekah Brunstetter’s performs Be A Good Little Widow and Miss Lily Will get Boned.
“I noticed that performing fits me finest. It appears loopy to assume that you have discovered what you need to do along with your life at age seven. However I feel I did,” Oleynik advised Footlights of selecting her profession.
In 2013, TMZ reported that Oleynik was granted a three-year restraining order in opposition to a person who had repeatedly referred to as her mom and left undesirable presents for the star. He additionally advised her that he had modified his final identify to hers.
Apart from a public romance with 10 Issues co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 1998 to 2002 and an Instagram-fueled report that she’s married to Who’s Your Baghdaddy? co-star Olli Haaskivi, Oleynik has saved her non-public life out of the headlines and has no youngsters. Nonetheless, whereas enjoying the mom of the socially anxious protagonist of The Therapeutic Powers of Dude, the actor stated she had nonetheless welcomed the possibility to enter the “mother zone” of performing roles.
“Being within the mother zone is the perfect!” she advised E! Information. “That is…what I am going out for proper now, not solely, however that is simply the place I am at. And it is truly an enormous reduction.”
For extra movie star updates despatched proper to your inbox, join our every day publication.
Whereas Oleynik made it out for the opening of a 2019 parody of 10 Issues I Hate About You, she was much less enthusiastic when requested about the potential of bringing again Alex Mack.
“, I do not know that I would need to tamper with it,” she advised MovieWeb. “I feel as it’s, it is fairly particular, however…I might be curious to revisit the character to see the place she’s at in her life. [Series creator Tommy Lynch] and I’ve talked about it on occasion…however I do not know. Most of me is saying let’s simply depart it’s. Every part is rosy-colored in hindsight, let’s depart it’s what it’s. Let’s consider it fondly.”
READ THIS NEXT: See Former Little one Star Haley Joel Osment Now at 34.