COBIE SMULDERS

VANITIES

All Is VANITIES... Noth ing Is Fair

MURDOCH’SMusings

CRAIG BROWN discovers how TWITTER has made Rupert’s most private ponderings public. PAGE 155.

THIS MONTH

TOP OF THE HEAP

A CHRONOLOGICAL JAUNT through American history’s FADDISH TOKENS of absolute power. PAGE 154.

FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS

AGE: 31. PROVENANCE: Vancouver, British Columbia, RIDING THE TIDE: Smulders's parents are both immigrants to Canada, but her British-born mother arrived under unique circumstances, after her sailboat sank in the Pacific. "They were on a life raft for a day or so. The Canadian Navy comes by, picks them up, and that's how she got to the country." PRIME TIMING: The actress's surprise big break was landing a lead role on the massively popular sitcom How / Met Your Mother, now in its ninth and final season. "I was like, 'Are you sure about this?' Because I had only done really dark indie things up in Canada or guest-starred on shows like Smallville, where I was a psychotic killer." ALL IN THE FAMILY: Next on the agenda is Delivery Man—based on a true story—which stars Vince Vaughn as a man who discovers he's fathered 533 children from a fertility-clinic donation he made two decades earlier. Smulders plays his pregnant girlfriend, ACTING MARVEL: In three upcoming projects, Smulders reprises her Maria Hill role from 2012's The Avengers: in Joss Whedon's Agents ofS.H.I.E.L.D. pilot, plus the next Captain America and Avengers installments. However, she also looks to the stage. "Every time I go to New York and see a show, I'm always inspired. So I'm just keeping that in mind."

KRISTA SMITH