Though Melissa Sagemiller indeed started acting early on in her childhood, it wasn't until after a brief stint as a model that her career really took off. Making her feature debut in 2001 with Get Over It, Sagemiller would next take the lead in the teen supernatural thriller Soul Survivors later the same year.Spending a good portion of her childhood in Washington, D.C., Sagemiller's parents were in politics, though the young beauty opted for a more creative career. Taking an interest in dance from a young age, Sagemiller studied the performing arts and made an early stage appearance as the young Dill in a production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Soon after taking other roles on the D.C. stage, Sagemiller was spotted by Eileen Ford in a Manhattan jewelry store and swept to Paris to pursue a modeling career at 14. Moving back to study art history at the University of Virginia shortly after, she then began to study acting in New York at the Stella Adler Conservatory and landed her first film roles. Sagemiller continued her Tinseltown ascent in 2002 with the gender bending college comedy Sorority Boys.