American actress Megan Fox is perhaps best known for her breakout role as Mikaela Banes in the blockbuster franchise Transformers. But what did Fox do prior to Hollywood?
Megan Fox was interested in performing arts from a young age. She had some roles in film and television before achieving mainstream success with Transformers in 2007. Before she was famous, then, Fox was actively pursuing her dream to become an actress.
Let’s take a look at Megan Fox’s early life and how she achieved notoriety as a “sex symbol” actress and model.
What was Megan Fox’s childhood like?
Megan Fox was born on May 16, 1986, to her mother, Gloria Darlene, and father, Franklin Thomas Fox. She was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, and lived in nearby Rockwood until she was 10 years old.
Her parents divorced when she was 3 years old and her mother remarried to Tony Tonachio, who raised Megan and her sister.
When she was 5 years old she started to train in drama and dance. She also joined her elementary school’s chorus and swim team.
The family was strictly religious, and attended a Pentecostal church, although Megan ended up attending Catholic schools for her entire educational career. Megan was not allowed to date or even bring friends back to the house.
When she was 10 years old, the family relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, where Megan continued to pursue drama and dance.
At 13, she started to model after entering the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and winning several awards.
Megan Fox has spoken out about her time in school, saying that she strongly disliked the environment. “There were some evil girls in my school and I went to Christian high school. I was 15 and everybody knew that my aspiration in life was to become an actress,” she said.
She went on, “One girl came to school on Halloween in a black leather catsuit and everyone thought she was cat woman. She answered, ‘No I am Megan Fox.’ She was making fun of me. I didn’t say anything to her. I was really shy.”
Megan struggled to make friends at school, since she found it easier to get along with boys over girls, and that, “rubbed some people the wrong way,” she explained.
Fox reflected, “I have a very aggressive personality, and girls didn’t like me for that. I’ve had only one great girlfriend my whole life.”
“I was not ever for a second popular. Everyone hated me, and I was a total outcast,” Megan recounted.
At some point during her school years, the young Fox started to eat her lunch in the bathroom, since if she sat in the cafeteria, she would be, “pelted with ketchup packets.”
Fox also explained that she’s not a “big believer in formal education.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Megan decided to leave high school early, aged 17, by sitting the necessary tests via correspondence.
How did Megan Fox become famous?
When she was 15 years old, Megan landed the role of spoiled heiress Brianna Wallace, in the direct-to-DVD film Holiday in the Sun (2001), which co-starred the Olsen twins. She then guest-starred on television shows What I Like About You and Two and a Half Men.
In 2004, she starred opposite Lindsay Lohan in the film Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. She had a recurring role on the TV sitcom Hope & Faith for two seasons until it was cancelled in 2006.
In 2007, came Megan’s big break. She was awarded the lead female role of Mikaela Banes in Transformers. It was this role that catapulted Fox into the public’s eye and cemented her status of “sex symbol.”
Megan has spoken out about how this label has damaged her self-confidence, saying, “The attention, that other people are telling you that you are beautiful, only feeds insecurities and sort of makes it unbearable.”
Watch Megan spread a positive message about how it’s “acceptable” to be unpopular at school.