A lovely, talented, plus charming actress, Keri Lynn Russell sure has all the quality needed to captivate every person's heart and shine brightly as one of the most promising starlets of the 21st century in Hollywood. Born as the second child of David Russell and Stephanie Stephens on March 23, 1976 in Fountain Valley, California, the green-eyed beauty spent most of her childhood living in Dallas, Texas then Mesa, Arizona where she later flourished a passion for dancing in her early teens. Soon became a skilled dancer, it was this knack of her that delightfully led the young girl to be accepted in the Mesa Stars Dance and Drill team, and more importantly, to appear on "Star Search" through which she was noticed by Disney's talent scouts to finally be cast as the regular performer on "The All New Mickey Mouse Club" in 1991.

Already settled in Denver, Colorado around that time while also studying at the state's Highlands Ranch High School, Keri boldly left the city to carry out her stint on the show, gradually developing another craft in acting there, thanks to its 1993 dramatic series segment of "Emerald Cove." Added with the cinematic experience she got through Disney's comedic sci-fi flick of "Honey I Blew Up the Kid" (1992), all the performances subsequently provided her with enough confidence to build a decent acting career when she left the program in 1993. Landed her feet in Los Angeles, the comely teen afterwards managed to be involved in various small screen productions for the next couple years, either TV series like "Daddy's Girls" (1994) and "Malibu Shores" (1996) or TV-movie features of "The Babysitter's Seduction" (1996) and "When Innocence Is Lost" (1997).

Kept aiming to hit the industry hard, Keri ultimately reached her goal in 1998 with her fine enactment of the title role in "Felicity", the WB fantasy teen drama series about a female student coping with the change of her life upon entering college. Created by J.J Abrams, the show immediately soared to be one of the network's popular programs of that year, even directed this striking blonde to gloriously secure a Golden Globe Award of Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama in 1999, undeniably propelled her to widespread attention shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, the series itself consequently became so deeply attached to her so when she decided to cut her long, curly hair by the second season, the ratings suddenly encountered a significant drop and thus made The WB executives viciously blamed her to be the main cause of it.

Though managed to resurface afterwards, "Felicity" ultimately was put to an end in May 2002, on the other hand giving Keri ample chance to broaden her acting career in film production accordingly. Eagerly joined the high-profile cast of "We Were Soldiers" (2002), she then took part in Kevin Costner's vehicle, "The Upside of Anger" (2005) before reunited with Abrams who cast her to play an agent trainee under the watch of Ethan Hunt played by megastar Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 3" (2006). Also slated to appear in three other 2006 movies of "Rohtenburg", "Waitress", and "August Rush", it seems the road has really turned smooth enough for her to undergo.

Take a look into her love life, Keri once dated "Blossom" star Joey Lawrence yet it was her relationship with fellow Mouseketeer Tony Lucca that was widely remembered among public. Sadly, the bond was broken after 8 years togetherness as they concluded to break-up in 1999, but she surprisingly was quick to flourish a new love, this time in her "Felicity" co-star, Scott Speedman. Nevertheless, the romance did not last long either and the twosome ultimately separated in 2001. By the year 2006, the actress became engaged to contractor Shane Deary and both then got hitched on Valentine's Day 2007. On June 9th the same year, the pair happily welcomed the arrival of their first child together, a baby boy named River Russell Deary.