The star of blockbuster movies Speed, While You Were Sleeping, and A Time to Kill has been active in drama since childhood - but that's never been her only passion. In high school, she was into theater and a cheerleader at the same time. "I wanted to show people that drama majors weren't all introverts and that cheerleaders weren't all perky and obnoxious," she says today. Indeed, the theater/cheerleader combination might be a good summary of her much-loved screen presence - a warm and lively person who seems to have an introspective side.

Born in Arlington, Virginia in 1964, Sandra spent her childhood on the road with her father, a vocal teacher; her German mother, an opera singer; and her younger sister. After high school, she took drama classes at East Carolina University for three years, and then moved to New York City. While studying method acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, she constantly auditioned for theater roles; she had ruled out television and film as "unserious" acting. When she could only find work with tiny, obscure theaters, she agreed to be in a student film, and ended up liking the experiment so much that she immediately took off for California to try her hand at movies full-time.

After acting in several TV movies in the late 1980s, including The Bionic Showdown and The Preppy Murder, she was bankable enough to land roles in early 1990s movies like The Thing Called Love and The Vanishing. Her big break came in 1994, with the release of Speed with Keanu Reeves.