Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Career
* 3 Personal life
* 4 Filmography
* 5 References
* 6 External links
Early life
Cook was born in Oshawa, Ontario and spent most of her life growing up in Whitby where she attended Anderson Collegiate Vocational Institute. Her father, Mike, is a teacher and her mother, Sandra, works for a psychiatrist. She has three siblings, Nathan, Paul, and Angela. Cook is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A dancer from age four,Cook began taking jazz, tap and ballet lessons. She danced competitively for many years, before deciding at the age of 17 that she wanted to try acting.
Career
Cook's first job was in a McDonald's commercial in 1997. She graduated to series work with a guest role on the television series Goosebumps, and parts in two television movies, In His Father's Shoes and Elvis Meets Nixon. Cook launched her feature film career as one of five captivating suicidal sisters in 1999's The Virgin Suicides. Also that year, she took a starring role in the TV series Higher Ground, in which Cook played Shelby Merrick, a rough-around-the-edges teenage girl dealing with abuse and heartache at a wilderness school for struggling kids. Higher Ground lasted one season, ending with a romance between Shelby and Hayden Christensen's character, Scott.
After Higher Ground, Cook appeared in the 2000 TV movie The Spiral Staircase (alongside Higher Ground alum Kandyse McClure), and then captured leading roles in several films, including Out Cold (as Jason London's love interest), Ripper, I'm Reed Fish, and Final Destination 2.
She currently stars as Jennifer "J.J." Jareau in the CBS drama Criminal Minds. On June 14, 2010 it was announced that her contract option would not be picked up for the show's sixth season as a series regular, but she did return for two episodes to wrap up her character's storyline due to thousands of letters and petitions written to the show's producers. She also returned for one episode for the departure of Paget Brewster from Criminal Minds. On April 16, 2011 it was reported that she had signed to reappear for two more seasons of the show.
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