You may know her as the sleek and sexy Number Six model Cylon from Syfy’s re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, but Canadian actress, Tricia Helfer grew up on her family’s grain farm in Alberta. Discovered outside a local movie theatre when she was just seventeen years old by a modeling agent, Helfer began a ten year modeling career that eventually led her to Hollywood.

Her first television stint was hosting Canadian modeling program, Ooh La La, after which she relocated to California to begin pursue acting. Early roles included appearances on Jeremiah and  CSI, before Helfer was cast as Number Six in the Battlestar Galactica mini-series in 2003.

During her six year stint on Battlestar Galactica, including her appearance in both of the made for television films: Razor and The Plan, Helfer also portrayed Farrah Fawcette in an NBC behind-the-scenes film about Charlie’s Angels.

Though she retired from modeling in 2002, Helfer continued to keep her finger on the pulse of the modeling industry, hosting and producing the Canadian modeling series, Canada’s Next Top Model.

Since the series end of Battlestar Galactica, she’s begun popping up in a number of televisions series, including Burn Notice, Two and a Half Men, Chuck, Warehouse 13 and the pilot episode of Fox’s Human Target.

Beauty and elegance, poise and intelligence, Tricia Helfer has come a long way from the family farm in Alberta, and now that she’s become a household face and name, you can guarantee she’ll be doing more than popping up in television over the next few years.