Piper Perabo Pictures

Piper Lisa Perabo (born October 31, 1976) is an American stage, film and television actress.

Perabo was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary Charlotte (née Ulland), a physical therapist, and George William Perabo, the Dean of English & Literature at Ocean County College. She is of Portuguese and Norwegian descent. Her parents chose to name her after actress Piper Laurie. She graduated from Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio.

In 2000, Perabo was cast in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle as lead character FBI agent Karen Sympathy. Her next film, Coyote Ugly, was more of a star-making role. She played Violet Sanford, nicknamed "Jersey," a young woman who moves to New York to pursue her dream of becoming a songwriter. Perabo took lessons in voice, guitar, piano and bartending to prepare for the role. Despite poor reviews, the film was a modest box-office success and she won an MTV Movie Award for Best Music Moment for "One Way or Another."
In 2001, Perabo starred in an independent Canadian movie called Lost and Delirious, playing a boarding school student who falls in love with a female classmate. The next year, she starred as a French exchange student in Slap Her... She's French, which was shelved in North America for two years, then released under the new title She Gets What She Wants. The film was released under its original title in Europe. In 2003, she had a role as the eldest Baker child, Nora, in Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) which she reprised in its 2005 sequel.
Other recent films include The i Inside (2003), Perfect Opposites (2004), George and the Dragon (2004), The Cave (2005), Imagine Me & You (2005), Edison (2005), The Prestige (2006) and Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008). She appeared as a nutritionist on the Fox TV show House.
In 2009, Perabo made her Broadway debut in the Neil LaBute play reasons to be pretty.