career as a ballerina and appeared in local ballet productions. As she entered her teens, she was forced to quit ballet due to her height. She later said, "I realized pretty early on that I was already too tall by the time I was 13... You know, your body has to stay that way for your entire life, and it's pretty hard on your muscles and your bones." Realizing a dance career was unlikely, she turned to acting. As she was still a teenager at the time, this required her to be homeschooled through most of high school. Career Acting 1997–2004 Winstead appeared in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond. After her brief performance in that show, Winstead began making appearances in various television series and earned guest roles in Touched by an Angel and Promised Land. She gained her first major role as Jessica Bennett in the NBC soap opera Passions, from 1999 to 2000. She left to pursue other interests, later stating, "I really had one of the smallest roles on Passions, so I didn't get too involved... I was able to leave pretty easily". Winstead's next significant television role was in the short-lived CBS drama series Wolf Lake (2001–02), as the daughter of Tim Matheson's character. The series was canceled after ten episodes. In 2004, Winstead played a supporting role in MTV's made-for-television film Monster Island. She was offered a role in the film A Cinderella Story, but turned it down as she had just graduated from school and was going on a cruise with friends (where she met Riley Stearns, her future husband). 2005–2011 Following a minor role in the indie comedy Checking Out (2005), she took on a larger role as a school senior turned the main antagonist in the Walt Disney Pictures film Sky High, about an airborne school for teenage superheroes. Winstead said of her role, "I bounced around. I was either the hero of the sidekicks or the sidekick to the heroes." The film was released on July 29, 2005, receiving favorable reviews, and budgeted at US$35 million, it grossed US$63.9 million domestically. Winstead then began working with filmmakers James Wong and Glen Morgan, previously known for their contributions to The X-Files. She starred in the 2006 horror movie Final Destination 3 (which Wong directed and Morgan produced) as lead character Wendy Christensen, the "beleaguered heroine