Jodi Russell (born Jodi Varble) was born in the small Midwestern town of Rockford, Illinois. She was the youngest daughter born to parents Jerry, a truck driver and mechanic and Arlene Varble, who ran her own cake decorating business. Living in a small town, surrounded in farmland, meant Jodi’s best asset was using her imagination. It was her time as a model that helped Jodi realize her love for being in front of an camera. She began modeling at the age of 15 modeling in Chicago and enjoying a successful tenure on the runway and in pageants during the mid 1980s. Jodi’s acting career started in 1991 with an obscure, feature film titled “Lethal Justice”. Progressing through the 1990s, Jodi made appearances more consistently across television with credits on Silk Stalkings (1991) and Conan (1997). As the 21st century arrived, Jodi continued her acting with more television works starting with Cover Me: Based on the True Life of an FBI Family (2000), followed by two episodic appearances on Touched by an Angel (1994) and Everwood (2002). From the mid 2000s onward, Jodi’s career switched to include working credits in feature films including the romance comedy Blind Dating (2006) starring Chris Pine and Jane Seymour and Dark Matter (2007) starring Meryl Streep. She had a rare, main starring role in the romance drama Reflections in the Mud (2009). Jodi then completed two consecutive film projects in 2011 beginning with the old-western drama, Redemption: For Robbing the Dead (2011) and the crime drama 3 of a Kind (2012) winning her first ‘best actress’ award at the Houston Film Festival.