Heather Graham looks back on awkward teen phase before rising to Hollywood stardom

Heather Graham has reflected on her early days in Hollywood and how her high school classmates only later realized they had overlooked her.

The 56-year-old actress recently looked back on landing her breakout role as Mercedes Lane in the 1988 coming-of-age comedy License to Drive, which she secured at just 17 years old.

Speaking on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, Graham recalled how the timing of the film’s release coincided with a turning point in her life.

“[The movie] came out right as I was graduating,” she said. “And I think people were like, ‘Oh, maybe we should have like, paid attention to her.’”

Despite playing a confident, popular cheerleader in the film, Graham said her real teenage years were far from glamorous.

“I was nerdy… you know, I was smart and I was just like, nobody thought I was that pretty,” she said, adding that she struggled with style and makeup at the time.

“I got this job as like, the popular, pretty cheerleader, and I had very bad style and bad hair and makeup. Like I did not know how to like, you know, do that,” she explained.

The role, however, marked the beginning of a career that would span decades and showcase her versatility. 

Graham later went on to star in Boogie Nights as Rollergirl and in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me as Felicity Shagwell, taking on a wide range of characters across comedy and drama.

More recently, she has appeared in the horror project They Will Kill You, where she described the physically demanding role as both challenging and rewarding.

“I trained every day. It was hard, you know? It was hard,” she told PEOPLE in a previous interview, adding that the experience ultimately turned out to be “really fun.”