Izabella Miko

Miko was born Izabella Anna Mikołajczak in Łódź, Poland, the daughter of actors Grażyna Dyląg and Aleksander Mikołajczak. She grew up in Warsaw, where she studied to be a ballerina at the Chopin Music School. An American choreographer invited her to study in New York City on a scholarship with the School of American Ballet, and she later enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Institute to study acting.^[5] She later recalled this experience by saying: "I came from Poland to America to study ballet in New York. I got a scholarship when I was 15 and ended up in New York by myself. No money, no English, no parents. So it was very tough. Those three years were really, really hard, but they were worth it."^[6] After sustaining knee and ankle injuries, Miko briefly left New York City and returned to Poland.^[5][6]

At the age of 18, Miko returned to the United States and landed her first major film role as Cammie in Coyote Ugly (2000).^[3] Coyote Ugly was a box office success, grossing over $113 million worldwide,^[7] and became a cult classic over the years.^[8][9] Her character Cammie works as a bartender at Coyote Ugly and becomes friends with a new employee Violet, played by Piper Perabo.^[10] In 2024, Miko told LATV: "Coyote Ugly changed my life completely. I was so hungry, I used to go to meetings just to get food and I had crazy little jobs."^[6]

This was followed with a lead role in the 2001 vampire horror film The Forsaken, playing a young woman infected by a vampiric virus. In 2005, Miko appeared in a multi-episode story arc on the HBO series Deadwood; the same year, she appeared in the music video for "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers (she again collaborated with the band for the video of their 2012 single "Miss Atomic Bomb").^[11] Miko portrayed a circus trapeze artist, Alice in the drama film Bye Bye Blackbird (2005), where she combined her background as a dancer with new skills in trapeze and tightrope walking.^[6] She was nominated for Best Young Character Actress at the 2008 Undine Awards for her role in Bye Bye Blackbird.^[12] She had a lead role as Sara Johnson in the dance film Save the Last Dance 2 (2006), replacing Julia Stiles from the original film.^[6][13]

Miko appeared in several independent films in the late 2000s, including Park (2007) and the comedy Flakes (2007), the latter of which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival.^[14] The following year, she appeared as a seductive nightclub singer in Dark Streets (2008), an adaptation of the play of the same name by Glenn M. Stewart. She also appeared in the crime thriller Double Identity (2009) in a lead role and in the big-budget remake Clash of the Titans (2010) as Athena. She was also in a supporting role as an acrobat named Raia in the television series The Cape, followed by a supporting role as a spy in the British war thriller Age of Heroes, based on the formation of Ian Fleming's No. 30 Commando during World War II. In 2011, she guest starred as Lena on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit called "Russian Brides." She was an executive producer of the film Yellow (2012) starring Sienna Miller and Riley Keough.^[15] She also choreographed a scene for the film.^[15]

In 2012, Miko appeared opposite Danny Huston and Sienna Miller in the period drama Two Jacks, directed by Bernard Rose, and in the South Korean dance film Make Your Move in 2013. Miko appeared in Billy Idol's music video for "Can't Break Me Down", and also had a supporting role in Step Up: All In, both in 2014. Also in 2014, she had a small role in the fantasy television series Supernatural, episode "Ask Jeeves" of season 10, where she portrays a shape shifter working for a rich heiress who has died. In 2015, Miko co-produced the biographical film Desert Dancer, which tells the story of Iranian choreographer Afshin Ghaffarian. The same year, she had guest appearances on the television series Blue Bloods and Scorpion as well as a recurring role on the action-drama series Chicago Fire.^[16]

Miko supports green politics and keeps a video blog titled "Eko Miko".^[17] She has supported Global Green USA, an environmentalist group and organization that constitutes the American branch of Green Cross International.^[18][19]

She is vegan.^[20] Miko is multilingual and speaks English, French and Polish.^[21]