Summer Glau

Summer Lyn Glau was born in San Antonio, TX, where she grew up with her two younger sisters, Christie and Kaitlin. Her father was a general contractor and her mother was a schoolteacher. Glau was home-schooled between 3rd and 12th grade due to her receiving a scholarship with a dance company, in which she trained in ballet, tango and flamenco. Her dance career ended after a serious ankle injury, forcing the future star to move to Los Angeles in 2002, where Glau stayed with friends first while she began the next phase of her career aspirations by auditioning for television commercials.Perhaps due in part to her dance background, Glau's first television role was as a prima ballerina trapped in a time warp on the 2002 "Angel" (WB, 1999-2004) episode, "Waiting in the Wings." The show's creator Joss Whedon, who was also the mastermind behind the brilliant series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (WB, 1997-2003), knew Glau was destined to be a star. After asking her to audition and test for the role on the same day, he cast the actress two weeks later in the series "Firefly," starring as River Tam, a former child genius-turned-psychic on board the spaceship. Glau found the role to be quite challenging. "Playing River was difficult because I don't know what it's like to be a psychic and I don't know what it's like to be a government experiment and live on a spaceship and fly around in space," she said. "I think sci-fi actors have to have a very vivid imagination."Even though "Firefly" only lasted one season - cancelled after only 11 of the 14 episodes produced aired - it still had a huge cult following. The demand for a feature film based on the series became a reality when "Serenity" - named after the renegade crew's spaceship - was released in theaters in September 2005. The film was well-received by critics, even garnering "Two thumbs up" from Roger Ebert. However, despite the loyal fan base, "Serenity" produced a less-than-stellar box office performance.Never one to rest on the success of one project, Glau kept a busy schedule, taking on smaller roles in the film "Sleepover" (2004) as a high school student, the TV movie "The Initiation of Sarah" (2006), and a guest appearance on the crime screen drama "CSI" (CBS, 2000-). In 2006, Glau booked a recurring role as Crystal Burns in "The Unit" (CBS, 2006 -09), and as Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic, in "The 4400" (USA Network, 2004-07). The latter show's cancellation was especially heartbreaking for the actress, who said, "I enjoyed my time there immensely, and I thought it was an excellent show." Glau was not in the show's finale because she just started filming her next project, a TV series based on one of the biggest film franchises in history.With a resume that included sci-fi based projects from "Firefly" to "The 4400," getting cast in the genre came easy for Glau. "Actors that are in sci-fi shows tend to make an easy transition into other sci-fi shows," she said. In January 2008, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" debuted, with Glau playing Cameron Phillips/Allison Young, a cyborg sent to protect John Connor (Thomas Dekker) and Sarah Connor (Lena Headey). The actress was able to revisit her dance background in the seventh episode of the series, "The Demon Hand," where her character ballet danced.Glau said she loved filming the series' action scenes, but found humor was at the heart of her character. "She's very open, like a child," Glau said. "She absorbs the behavior around her and tries to understand it as best she can, and sometimes it ends up being extremely funny." Glau's role as a female Terminator - a role popularized in the 1984 and 1991 feature films by Arnold Schwarzenegger - instantly made Glau the crush of comic geeks and fan boys everywhere. The actress even guest-starred on the second season of "The Big Bang Theory" (CBS, 2007 -), playing herself in the episode "The Terminator Decoupling."