After a couple of years of independent films and TV, Selma Blair began to make her name in late-'90s teen-targeted work. The Michigan-born and educated Blair originally moved to New York to pursue a career as a photographer, but wound up taking acting classes at the Stella Adler Conservatory instead. After being discovered by an agent, Blair played substantial roles in indie films Strong Island Boys (1997), Girl (1998), and Brown's Requiem (1998), and the TV movie No Laughing Matter (1997). She truly arrived, as the proverbial young actress to watch, in 1999 as level-headed New York teen Zoe in the WB sitcom Zoe, Duncan, Jack, and Jane (retitled Zoe in 2000), and more prominently, as the gullible and bumbling Cecile Caldwell in the popular Les Liaisons Dangereuses update Cruel Intentions (1999).

Although Cecile played a secondary role in the film's nefarious sexual machinations among rich Manhattan prep schoolers, Blair's attention-getting onscreen kiss with co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar earned the teen seal of approval with an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss in June 2000. Blair continued her youth movie work as a school drop-out-turned-porn star in the college romantic comedy Down to You (2000). After the cancellation of Zoe, Blair turned her attention again to movies.

Filmography
Guy Thing, A (2003) .... Karen
Sweetest Thing, The (2002) .... Jane Burns
Legally Blonde (2001) .... Vivian Thelma Kensington
Kill Me Later (2001) .... Shawn Holloway
Down to You (2000) .... Cyrus
Girl (1999/I) .... Darcy
Cruel Intentions (1999) .... Cecile Caldwell
"Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane" (1999) TV Series .... Zoe Bean

Articles & Interviews
Rolling Stone "Sweet Things" April 25, 2002
RomanticMovies "Selma Blair Interview-The Sweetest Thing" April 6, 2002
Cinema Confidential"Selma Blair of "Storytelling"" date unknown
MovieMaker "A Few Seconds with Indie Sweetheart Selma Blair" date unknown
E! "Celebrity Chat" date unknown
E! "The Sizzlin Sixteen of '99" date unknown