AllMovie

The daughter of longtime screen actor Ernie Lively and the junior member of a showbiz-savvy sibling collective that also includes brothers Jason and Eric and sisters Lori and Robyn, Tarzana, CA native Blake Lively possesses just the kind of wholesome good looks that the Hollywood lens seems to love. Of course, it wouldn't take a psychic to figure out what line of work the cheery and clean-cut blonde would go for, and even after suffering an early career setback at a Mrs. Doubtfire audition gone bad, Lively was still determined to persevere. It was at the tender age of five that young Lively first had her shot at the big time, and though her parents' plan to calm her by telling her that she was only going to be auditioning alongside Robin Williams' twin bizarrely backfired when the aspiring actress was introduced to the real deal, she would later bounce back around the end of the 1990s with a featured performance in the girlish hit The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. A family affair was quick to follow when Lively and fellow family members Robyn, Lori, and Ernie were all tormented by Crispin Glover in the 2006 horror film Simon Says. Also that year, the recently graduated high-school student would venture off to college with her role as the ideal object of a creative-thinking loser's affections in Accepted. In 2007 she landed her breakout role as Serena on the popular TV series Gossip Girl. She returned for the Traveling Pants sequel in 2008, and had a crucial part in Ben Affleck's well-reviewed crime drama The Town. She was cast in Green Lantern in 2010, and two years later she would be part of Oliver Stone's gritty crime film Savages. Lively then took a short break from acting, returning in 2015's The Age of Adaline.