Malin Maria Åkerman (born May 12, 1978) is a Swedish–Canadian actress and model born in Stockholm, Sweden. She moved to Canada at the age of two and as a child appeared in several television commercials before going on to win a modeling contract at age sixteen.
Åkerman's subsequent acting career began with her debut on the Canadian television series Earth: Final Conflict in 1997, followed by many small television and film parts, including The Utopian Society (2003) and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004).
Åkerman gained her first starring role as Lila in The Heartbreak Kid (2007), opposite Ben Stiller and the following year played a supporting role in the romantic comedy 27 Dresses (2008) with Katherine Heigl.
In 2009, Åkerman got her big break when cast as Silk Spectre II in the superhero film Watchmen, for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Other notable films include The Proposal, Couples Retreat, and The Bang Bang Club.
Åkerman was born in Stockholm, Sweden to aerobics teacher and part-time model Pia (née Sundström) and insurance broker Magnus Åkerman. When she was two, the family moved to Canada where her parents divorced four years later with her father moving back to Sweden. Both of her parents remarried, giving Åkerman one half-brother and two half-sisters.
She has recalled her childhood as "painful", explaining that "I loved my father very much and I only got to see him during the school holidays. But I think it was an advantage that they split up when I was very young, so I could get used to it. My ties to Sweden have always been really strong and I love having two cultures." She lived in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario for many years.
As a child, Åkerman had no plans to become an actress. Her mother introduced her to modelling while she was still in primary school and she later landed several advertising campaign deals, but decided to stop at age twelve. However, four years later she returned to modelling after her discovery by Ford Models in a shopping mall. She was signed to the agency and later won a contract with skincare company Noxzema. At age eighteen, she changed direction again and decided to become a child psychologist. Åkerman then spent a year at York University in Toronto, but was simultaneously offered television and film roles and decided to drop out of school to become an actress. She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 to pursue her acting career full time.
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