Selma Blair is an American actress best known for her performances in Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing and Hellboy.
She was born in Southfield, Michigan on June 23, 1972. After training at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, she took on minor film roles, the first being a 1995 guest appearance in the television series The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Her first film was The Broccoli Theory, released in 1996, and appeared in other films such as 1997’s Two in the Morning and 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait. She also had a minor part in the 1997 horror flick Scream 2, as a voice on the phone.
In 1999, she appeared on Cruel Intentions, alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon, as the naïve “innocent little twit” Cecile Caldwell. She appeared in films like 2001’s Storytelling before starring, along with Witherspoon, in the same year’s Legally Blonde.
Selma Blair then made the rounds of different romantic comedies. In 2002, she appeared alongside Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate in the film The Sweetest Thing. The next year, she appeared in A Guy Thing, with Jason Lee and Julia Stiles.
In 2004, she appeared alongside Ron Perlman in the film adaptation to Hellboy. In the film, she plays Liz Sherman, who has pyrokinetic abilities; she will reprise this role in the upcoming movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army. She was also in the cast of 2004’s In Good Company, starring Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Scarlet Johannson.
Blair is set to appear in the American version of the successful Australian comedy series, Kath & Kim, alongside Molly Shannon; it will be premiered on NBC in October 2008. She is also part of British thriller WΔz, alongside Stellan Skarsgård and Ashley Walters, and is one of the producers of The 1-Minute Film.