A headstrong beauty who started landing parts straight out of high school, Sackhoff snagged what seemed to be her breakthrough role in 2001 as the rebellious daughter of a professor on the highly anticipated drama The Education of Max Bickford, but the show lasted only one season. A handful of small parts followed before she signed on to an unlikely hit: a 2003 miniseries based on the kitschy 1970s sci-fi franchise Battlestar Galactica. Sackhoff enticed fan boys with her sexually charged turn as a renegade fighter pilot and returned to the role for the subsequent series, which ran for five years. In 2008, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer; her thyroid was surgically removed and Sackhoff was declared cancer free. With that scare behind her, she signed on as a series regular for the eighth and final season of 24. Off camera, Sackhoff stays true to her athletic roots (as a teen she had planned to go pro in swimming until a knee injury sidelined her) with adventurous hobbies like snowboarding and motorcycle riding.