Natasha Henstridge was born August 15, 1974, in Springdale, Newfoundland, Canada, to a housewife mother and a biker/contractor father. After growing up in a trailer park in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, Natasha took off to Paris at the age of 14 to pursue a modeling career. By the time she was 15, Natasha had become a model for Oil of Olay, Lady Stetson and Old Spice, appearing in ads and commercials for the beauty products and fragrances. She also graced the cover of French Cosmopolitan, as well as various international fashion magazines.
While modeling in France gave Natasha the recognition she deserved as a beautiful woman, she quickly became bored by her job and did not feel that she was being challenged enough. She sought something more exciting and presented herself with a new creative challenge: acting. Blurring the lines between acting and modeling, Natasha's first role was in the science fiction feature film, Species. The role of Sil, the alien in a woman's body trying to get pregnant in order to reproduce her alien species, still demanded a beautiful face and figure, both of which Natasha possessed. She was chosen among over 100 other hopefuls, and although she was one of the less experienced women to audition, she succeeded in portraying her seductive yet evil character.
Natasha won an MTV Award for Best Kiss, which she shared with her Species co-star. While Species was physically demanding, it was not enough of a role to consider Natasha a burgeoning actress. But more roles began to follow her feature film debut. She was cast in Maximum Risk with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Adrenaline: Fear The Rush, and appeared in an episode of Homeboys in Outer Space in 1996. True to the sci-fi theme, Natasha appeared in an episode of The Outer Limits in 1997. A year later, she provided her voice for an episode of South Park before the film roles began piling up along with her list of admirers. She starred in the sequel to Species in 1998, and appeared in Bela Donna, Dog Park, Standoff, Kill You Twice, and It Had To Be You, that same year. This year Natasha co-starred with Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis in the comedy, The Whole Nine Yards. As Cynthia Tudeski, Natasha was believable as the wife of a mass murderer, while showing off her model assets. She also starred in the made-for-TV movie, Jason and the Argonauts.
Joining other models-turned-actresses such as Cameron Diaz and Rene Russo, Natasha has surely met her challenge of succeeding in another career. She has recently finished working on Second Skin, Kevin of the North and A Better Way to Die, and has starring roles lined up in The Judith Exner Story and Ghosts of Mars, in a role Courtney Love was originally set to play. Her next film, Bounce, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck, is set for release in October. Presently living in Los Angeles, the actress that topped Femmes Fatales magazine's "Sci-Fi's Sexy 50" list is also the mother of Tristan River Waite, her son with fiance Liam Waite.
