A lead and former juvenile actress, with a strong, intelligent, almost abrasive screen presence, she is the daughter of actors Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton, who never married and, in fact, broke up before she was born. At age eight she began working in a film-acting workshop; she made a series of Calvin Klein commercials at age 11. She debuted onscreen at the age of 13 in River Rat (1984), playing adolecents and teenagers in a string of films. By the early '90s she had broken out of the juvenile mode and started to establish herself as a mature actress. She had a close relationship with the late actor River Phoenix, with whom she appeared in The Mosquito Coast (1986) and Running on Empty (1988).