Laura Prepon biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actress Laura Prepon was born on March 7, 1980, Laura Prepon grew up the youngest of five siblings in a close-knit family in Watchung, New Jersey. Her father, Michael, was an orthopedic surgeon, and her mother, Marjorie, was a high school teacher. Prepon experienced a personal loss in 1993, when her father passed away while undergoing heart surgery. Her family grew extraordinarily close while coping with the loss of Prepon's father. According to Prepon, her entire family still gathers annually in New Jersey for Thanksgiving, where their quirky traditions include singing Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" together at the dining room table.

Prepon attended Watchung Hills Regional High School until 1995, when, at age 15, she fell in love with acting and transferred to the Total Theatre Lab in New York City. While undergoing intensive acting training, Prepon also studied ballet, jazz and modern dance and appeared in stage productions of A Woman of Property and Ascension Day. Strikingly beautiful, the 5-foot 10-inch aspiring actress first found work as a model. Despite traveling the globe to model in Paris, Milan and Brazil, Prepon quickly developed a distaste for modeling. "I hated modeling," she declares. "It was kind of exciting at first, but then I realized it wasn't what I wanted. I knew I wanted to act."

Breakthrough Role

It did not take long for Prepon to successfully make the shift from modeling to acting. In 1998, she sent in an audition tape for an upcoming Fox sitcom called That '70s Show. Prepon landed the part of Donna, an attractive and tomboyish feminist, on the show that follows a group of Wisconsin teenagers growing up in the 1970s. The popular Emmy Award-winning sitcom, which also sparked the careers of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, made Laura Prepon a household name among television fans. Since starring on That '70s Show, Prepon has become a rising star of television and film. She landed a starring role on the ABC series October Road (2007-'08) and a recurring spot on CBS's How I Met Your Mother (2009-'10). Prepon has also begun foraying into films, including Slackers (2002), Lightning Bug (2004) and The Pornographer: A Love Story (2004).

Personal Life

Both Maxim and Stuff magazine have featured Prepon on their lists of the most beautiful women in the world. But despite her good looks and celebrity status, she is known as a down-to-earth, no frills type of girl. That '70s Show co-star Topher Grace said of Prepon, "She actually is that girl that you never think exists, that quintessential girl that every guy is looking for." She typically does not wear makeup, ties her hair back in a loose ponytail, and says her wardrobe consists of "the same jeans and a different T-shirt every day." Prepon has always had predominantly male friends, and her favorite pastimes are fishing, shooting at the firing range, riding dirt bikes and, especially, poker.