Jessica Cauffiel moved to Chelsea, Michigan in her teens, into a town that already had one thing going for it in the performing-arts department: Jeff Daniels had founded the Purple Rose Theatre there in 1991, the same stretch of years Cauffiel was competing for Chelsea High School at the MIFA State Finals.
She represented Chelsea at three State Finals, performing in Duo Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation and Storytelling.
Detroit, then Chelsea
Cauffiel was born in Detroit, the daughter of Lowell Cauffiel, a true-crime author and television producer. By the time she reached high school the family was in Chelsea, where, by her own account, it was teachers she has called "life-changing" who set her on the path to performance.
From Chelsea she went to the University of Michigan's School of Music, into the conservatory training program for musical theatre, graduating in the same class of twenty as Gavin Creel, who would go on to win a Tony Award. Before she'd finished her degree she was already singing professionally, jazz clubs, a cruise ship, eventually an eight-piece acid jazz band of her own called Jazodity, in which she performed under the name Lady J and was crowned one of Virginia Slims' "Dueling Divas" of Detroit.
Margot
Cauffiel's film career started with a small part opposite Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin in The Out-of-Towners. It was the kind of break that happens because a casting director happened to see her in an off-Broadway show and called her agent two days later. It kept going from there: a bit part in Road Trip, a role in the horror film Valentine, and then, in 2001, Margot in Legally Blonde as one of Elle Woods' two sorority sisters, and a role she reprised in the 2003 sequel.
Her screen work also includes White Chicks, Guess Who, a recurring role as Tatiana on My Name Is Earl, a Hallmark Channel lead as a former Olympic-hopeful figure skater in Ice Dreams, for which she trained for weeks with a figure-skating choreographer to get the on-ice scenes right. Her voice has also featured in national commercial campaigns for more than a dozen brands.
The other stage
The performing didn't stop at scripted work. Cauffiel is a certified Kundalini yoga and meditation instructor, and in March 2004 she performed live in Dharamsala, India, alongside the percussionist Sivamani, for the 14th Dalai Lama. She has sung on a Grammy-finalist World Music album and written music of her own.
It's an unusual combination (sorority comedy, network sitcom, spiritual music, Himalayan foothills) but it isn't really a departure from where she started. Whatever the stage, someone still has to walk out on it and hold the room, which is the whole of what Duo, Dramatic Interpretation and Storytelling ask a fifteen-year-old to learn how to do.
On record
Our results archive is still being built and has gaps, so this is simply what we hold today.
