Yvonne Strahovski - Film & Theater Personalities, Timeline and Childhood

Yvonne Strahovski was born on 30th July 1982 in Sydney, Australia, to Bozena and Piotr, who moved to Australia after getting tired of their life in Poland, surrounded with communists. Her father worked as an engineer while her mother was a lab technician. The parents moved to Australia for a better life. They talked in their mother tongue at home and this brought a lot of trouble for Yvonne as a kid while trying to make friends.

She claims that she was a shy kid and her English was nowhere near even good. She walked to her high school daily and on her way she would keep a dictionary with her to keep herself updated about new words every day. To make the matters worse, she had acne on her face as a teenager, which turned her into an introvert.

She found solace in performance arts and constantly participated in dramas and plays in school. At her house, she would always walk around with a handy-cam in her hand, which further intrigued her about the whole process of filmmaking. Yvonne broke out the news to her parents about wanting to become an actor. After her graduation from University of Western Sydney, she did waitressing for some time and in 2003, she co-founded a theatre company of her own.

In the early stages of her career, she worked behind the camera for many TV productions and her passion got her a few cameo roles here and there, and they all turned out to be a great learning experience for her. The popular Australian satirical show ‘Double the Fist’ cast her for a small role. Another show ‘headLand’ came around that time, along with Channel Nine’s ‘Sea Patrol’. Despite her interesting beginnings, she had very few expectations from the Australian industry and with the dreams of making it big in the American film and TV industry, she moved to Los Angeles.

She started her life in Los Angeles with dozens of auditions for roles in films and television including ‘Chuck’ and ‘Bionic Woman’. She sent her audition tape for ‘Chuck’ and was contacted the very next day and was called a week later for a scene reading. She was immediately informed that she was being cast for playing the character of Sarah Parker. This was the first big break of her career and it got her settled in the US.

Her Polish and Australian accent helped her immensely on some episodes of ‘Chuck’ and it was a big reason for her to be signed on for the show. The show premiered in 2007 and became popular as the ratings grew higher, making Yvonne a star overnight. She, however, kept auditioning for meatier roles and as her performance was getting appreciated by the TV experts and critics, it became a little easy for her to grab new offers. But she wasn’t quite getting the roles she wanted, and meanwhile, she starred in a few films to keep the ball rolling.

She did several Australian and American films like ‘I Love you too’, ‘Matching Jack’ and ‘The Canyon’. She also grabbed a key part in 2014 in a video game ‘Mass Effect 2’, where she appeared as one of the animated characters. She carried on with some internet comedy sketches, providing voice for games and animation shows along with small parts in films and TV shows.

‘Chuck’ went off air in 2012 and in the same year, she appeared in a comedy film titled ‘Guilt Trip’, where she shared screen with Seth Rogan. One year prior, she was seen in ‘Killer Elite’, a big budget Hollywood flick, co-starring Jason Statham and Robert De Niro. Another big Hollywood film titled ‘I, Frankenstein’ featuring Yvonne released in 2014.

Her role in the seventh and eighth season of ‘Dexter’, a successful crime thriller, made her a household name in America and in 2014, her appearance in ’24’ got her further more publicity. Her career was growing with a lightning speed and another huge project came her way in late 2014 in form of ‘The Astronaut’s Wives Club’, where she played the character of Rene Carpenter. Other other film roles around 2014-15-16 were ‘Edge’, ‘Manhattan Nights’ and a superhero project ‘Batman: The Bad Blood’, where she worked as a voice artist.

For her role in ‘Chuck’, Yvonne has been honoured with many awards, and nominated for many more. Her first Teen Choice Award came her way in 2010 for the category of ‘Choice Action TV Category’. For the video game ‘Mass Effect 2’, she received a nomination for Best Performance by a Human Female and in 2011, she was once again nominated for Teen Choice Awards, losing it this time. The Australian edition of Cosmopolitan magazine honoured her with the Fun Fearless Woman of the Year award along with the Favourite TV Actress Honour. Apart from that, she has constantly appeared in Maxim Hot 100’s list for five perpetual years between 2009 and 2013.

Yvonne Strahovski has always been a keen supporter of animal rights and has participated in many of PETA’s campaigns. She joined them in the early stages of her career and continues working with them in their campaigns till now. She appeared in an ad requesting people to adopt stray animals instead of buying them as pets.

Yvonne’s dating life has been quite a talk of the town for many years. Upon meeting actor Matt Morgan in 2006, they instantly clicked and started dating right away. After ending things with Matt, she started dating her ‘Chuck’ co-star Tim Loden and they were together for five years. The couple tried keeping their relationship away from media and public but were unsuccessful and in July 2017, the couple got married in California.

As of July 2017, Yvonne Strahovski’s net worth is estimated to be around USD 8 million dollars.