Alexa Davalos's mother, Elyssa Davalos, is an actor, and her maternal grandfather, Richard Davalos, starred with James Dean in "East of Eden." Father Jeff Dunas was a photographer. As a girl, Alexa spent much of her time travelling, and is fluent in both French and Greek. Growing up around actors, she had seen the downside of the business, and, a self-described "bookworm," she initially planned to avoid Hollywood. But her striking looks led to modeling work, and before long she discovered that she wanted to act. In 2002, she was cast as the tough, sexy Gwen Raiden for three episodes Joss Whedon's vampire-with-a-soul series "Angel." The standout role got her a lot of attention, and soon she was fighting alongside Vin Diesel in the big-budget science fiction film "The Chronicles of Riddick." This led to a starring role as a medical student on the short-lived murder mystery series "Reunion," which co-starred her good friend, Amanda Righetti. When that show failed, Devalos returned to feature films. She played an idealistic young woman in love with a co-worker in Robert Benton's "Feast of Love," and forged another unlikely romance as part of a group of Jews hiding from the Nazis in Belorussia in the historical drama "Defiance." Davalos seems to gravitate toward special effects extravaganzas, co-starring in Frank Darabont's Stephen King adaptation "The Mist," about a small band of people facing an invasion of horrific creatures, and in the remake of