Traffic
Stopper

ERIKA CHRISTENSEN GRADUATED EARLY FROM HIGH SCHOOL, LANDED A ROLE OPPOSITE MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND THEN TOOK HIM DANCING.

Age: 18

Hometown: Seattle

Current residence: Los Angeles, where she lives with her mother, Kathy Christensen, a construction consultant; her father, Steve Christensen, who is starting an Internet company; her 14-year-old twin brothers, Brando (short for Brandon) and Dane; and Maxi Doodle, a cocker spaniel (“Don't ask,” says Christensen. “Maxi is short for Maxine, and, for some reason, my mom added Doodle. We call her Dude.”)

One for the books: Home-schooled through high school, Christensen, who played Wally Cleaver’s girlfriend in the 1997 Leave it to Beaver movie, earned her diploma at 16. “The thing about it is that you learn discipline because it’s so easy not to do the work and to just watch TV or something. Most of the time it was just me and the books.”

Parental consent: When Christensen won the role of Caroline Wakefield, a drug addict who eventually turns to prostitution for a fix, Traffic director Steven Soderbergh had to sell her parents on the script. “I think they knew that this was a great role for me as an actress, but as parents, they were going ‘This is my little girl.’” She’ll next be seen in Home Room, and independent feature about a high-school shooting.

Disco Douglas: Of Traffic co-star Michael Douglas, Christensen says, “One night we all went out dancing at some club in Kentucky. He’s a really good dancer. We were there until three or four in the morning. I slept in the next day, but he got up at nine and went golfing. I’m supposed to be the teenager, but he has so much energy."

— Irene Zutell