Stana Katic, born April 26, 1978, is a Canadian-American movie and television actress. She’s known for her role as Kate Beckett on the ABC television romantic crime series Castle and for playing Agent Emily Byrne in the thriller series Absentia. Take a look below for 27 more interesting and fascinating facts about Stana Katic.

1. Katic was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

2. In describing her ethnicity, she has stated, “My parents are Serbs from Croatia. I call us Dalmatian because that’s the part of the planet that we are originally from. I have Serb, Croat and even a handful of Montenegrin family members.”

3. Her father is from Vrlika, Croatia, and her mother is from the surrounding area of Sinj, Croatia.

4. Katic moved with her family from Hamilton, Ontario to Aurora, Illinois.

5. She spent her teenage years moving back and forth between Canada and the United States.

6. After graduating from West Aurora High School in 1996, Katic studied at the University of Toronto and then at the DePaul University Goodman School of Drama, from 2000 to 2002.

7. Katic studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school.

8. She speaks Serbian, French, English and Italian. She can also speak in accents of British, Irish, Eastern European, Italian, Spanish, Greek and South African.

9. Much like her character, Kate Beckett, she’s an avid reader. She also has a strong interest in environmental issues, archery and music.

10. On May 4, 2009, she revealed on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson that she has four brothers and that she used to cut their hair.

11. Katic wrote the lyrics for “Hey Blue Eyes,” which she sang for fans at the 51st Zlin Film Festival in 2011.

12. She holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada.

13. In 2014, she was ranked number 50 on Maxim’s Hot 100 list.

14. She won a PRISM award in the mental health category for her portrayal of Kate Beckett’s post traumatic stress disorder in Castle: Kill Shot.

15. Two years before she began solving murders as Kate Beckett, she played a woman suspected of committing a murder in the CSI: Miami episode CSI: Miami: Deep Freeze.

16. She founded the non-profit Alternative Travel Project in 2010.

17. Castle: Cool Boys is the first episode of Castle in which she doesn’t appear.

18. Her husband Kris makes a cameo in the Castle episode Castle: Death Gone Crazy.

19. Katic has played real people in two movies: Beat poet Lenore Kandel in Big Sur and rock singer Genya Ravan in CBGB.

20. Her birthday is the day after her wedding anniversary.

21. Though she played their commanding officer on Castle, Katic is younger than both Jon Huertas and Seamus Dever.

22. Despite relatively high billing in the opening credits of The Double, she only has about five minutes of screen time.

23. She appeared in Trisha Yearwood’s video of her rendition of Bob Dylan’s song “To Make You Feel My Love.”

24. Katic was a relative unknown when she got the lead role in Truth About Kerry in 2004. Because it went unreleased for so long, by the time the movie was screened at film festivals in 2010, she had already become a recognizable name for her role on Castle.

25. Absentia is her first leading role since the end of Castle. She filmed The Rendezvous and Sister Cities while Castle was still on the air, and her part in Lost in Florence is a supporting role, not the lead.

26. She played Hana Gitelman in Heroes, Collette Stenger in 24’s season five, and Jenny in the movie Feast of Love starring Morgan Freeman.

27. She played Morgenstern in Frank Miller’s movie The Spirit, Corrine Veneau in the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace, and Simone Renoir in the third installment of The Librarian franchise, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice.