If you were a child of the ’90s, you probably have fond memories of rushing home to watch her every day after school.
The Secret World of Alex Mack was one of the most beloved kids’ shows of the decade, making its star Larisa Oleynik an icon.
Running on Nickelodeon from 1994 to 1998, the show saw Oleynik portray a teenage girl who gets telekinetic powers – including “morphing” into a silver liquid – after a truck overturns during her walk to school, drenching her in a mystery chemical.
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When Oleynik met fans in real life – which was often – they would ask her to “morph” for them. Rather than let them down, she would quickly glance around and say, “Not here – everybody would see!”
The ’90s are long gone, but Oleynik has quietly kept up her acting career for over three decades – and she’s in more TV shows and films than you think.
Oleynik set her sights on Hollywood when she was all of 10 years old, but first got her start in theatre at the age of eight, after she landed the parts of young Cosette and young Éponine in a San Francisco production of Les Misérables.
After that, she began taking formal acting lessons.
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Then the roles came; along with Alex Mack, the movie adaptation of the popular Baby-Sitters Club book series, in which she played Dawn, cemented her popularity with young viewers.
She starred in the movie with some of the biggest young names of the ’90s, from Rachael Leigh Cook to Marla Sokoloff.
Oleynik’s next big role – perhaps her most memorable – came a few years later.
In 1999, she played high school queen bee Bianca Stratford – Julia Stiles‘ younger sister and Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s crush – in 10 Things I Hate About You.
The movie immediately joined the canon of iconic teen rom-coms, catapulting Oleynik, Stiles, Gordon-Levitt and the late Heath Ledger to major fame.
Who could possibly forget Oleynik’s iconic pink two-part prom dress, or quotes like, “I happen to like being adored, thank you”?
The movie reunited her with Gordon-Levitt, alongside whom she’d starred in hit sitcom 3rd Rock From the Sun.
Oleynik has fond memories of her time on set, especially the “chemistry” the cast shared.
“It’s really something I haven’t experienced since then. I haven’t experienced a group of people really getting along so, so, so well, and without ego or pretense, just really enjoying each other’s company,” she told Movieweb in 2019.
“And really enjoying the process of making a movie together, and we were all really excited to be there. I think that translates very well.”
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Oleynik’s career only got more illustrious – she went on to star in Boy Meets World, Malcolm in the Middle, Bringing Rain, Hawaii Five-0, Pretty Little Liars, and voiced Icy for the Winx Club.
One of her most memorable on-screen roles in recent years was in the acclaimed series Mad Men, in which she played Cynthia Cosgrove for five episodes.
In the 2010s, the star also returned to the stage, starring most recently in Miss Lilly Gets Boned in 2019.
Oleynik’s most recent film role was as Tia in 2021’s We Broke Up, and on TV, she plays Sylvia in the Nickelodeon comedy Erin & Aaron.
On the personal front, Oleynik has largely kept her private life in Venice, California out of the headlines.
In 2013, she was granted a restraining order against a stalker, who had become so obsessed with her that he had changed his own surname to “Oleynik.”
It’s unknown if she has a long-term partner, and, while she doesn’t have any children, when speaking about her role as the mother of the socially-anxious protagonist in The Healing Powers of Dude, she said she welcomes playing “mum roles” at this stage in her life.
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