October 28th’s “HOT or NOT?” candidate was Yvonne Strahovski. You voted. Yvonne is:
Born in Maroubra, a suburb of Sydney, as Yvonne Strzechowski to Polish parents who had emigrated from Warsaw. She adopted the more phonetic spelling of Yvonne Strahovski as her stage name at Chuck producer Josh Schwartz’s behest for the sake of easier pronunciation. Strahovski’s father is an electronics engineer and her mother works as a lab technician – she’s an only child and is very close to her family.
Yvonne spent her high school years attending Santa Sabina College, Strathfield. She is a graduate of University of Western Sydney’s Theatre Nepean with a Bachelor of Arts in Performance gaining straight A’s in her subjects. Yvonne started acting when she played Viola in a school production of Twelfth Night. Yvonne has also attended jazz dance training since the age of 6.
Strahovski first started her career in Australia appearing in film and TV roles, including a turn on satirical show Double the Fist and a part in Aussie drama series headLand.
She sent in her audition tape for the show Chuck while in the United States auditioning for roles in other shows, namely NBC’s 2007 series Bionic Woman (see special features of disk 3 of Chuck Season 1 “Chuck’s World”). She sent in an audition tape while waiting to hear from the other two jobs. She was contacted by the producers of Chuck the next day to come in to “run lines” with Zachary Levi. The producers called her back a week later letting her know she had been cast as Sarah Walker. Six months later, she moved to the United States.
Strahovski speaks fluent Polish and employed it in a brief exchange in the Chuck episode “Chuck Versus the Wookiee”. Although she portrays an American in the series, she briefly spoke in her real Australian accent in the episode “Chuck Versus The Ex”. Her audition footage, which is included in the DVD set Chuck: The Complete First Season, can be seen on YouTube.
Strahovski also appears in Mass Effect Galaxy as the voice of Miranda Lawson. It has been speculated that she modeled and voiced for the character in Mass Effect 2 as well.
In 2009, Strahovski was rated #94 on Maxim’s 2009 Hot 100 Women of the World.
Strahovski has lived in Los Angeles since 2007, but has made trips back to Sydney for work. She had mentioned in interviews that the most difficult thing about living in the US is being on her own and not having her family and friends to rely on.
