Erika Christensen played Michael Douglas's drug-addled daughter in the 2000 film Traffic (directed by Steven Soderbergh). Traffic won the Oscar as the year's best film and put Christensen on the Hollywood map. She followed up with another high-profile role as an obsessive seductress in the 2002 thriller Swimfan. Round-faced, with curved lips and watchful blue eyes, she has specialized in dramas and thrillers, often playing restless characters with a little something to hide. She played Susan Sarandon's daughter in The Banger Sisters (2002), an SAT-hacking student in The Perfect Score (2004), a flight attendant in Flightplan (2005, opposite Jodie Foster) and a resourceful bank clerk in How to Rob a Bank (2007). She also had a starring role in the short-lived TV series Six Degrees (2006-07).

She is no relation to Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen... Christensen, like Tom Cruise, is a Scientologist... Her brother, Dane Christensen, had a small role in her 2005 film The Upside of Anger.