Miranda Cosgrove

Miranda Taylor Cosgrove (born May 14, 1993) is an American teen actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Megan Parker in Drake and Josh, Summer Hathaway in School of Rock, and as Carly Shay in iCarly. Her acting career began in 2001, when she was spotted by an agent who was so impressed by her singing and dancing in a restaurant called "Taste of LA" that he signed her up for a number of small roles in commercials. Now she is doing iCarly, which is her third major role since 2007. She has won numerous awards in the Nickelodeon teen choice shows. Miranda has also done voice overs for Adventures of Peter Cottontail, Despicable Me and has appeared as "Hannah" in a film called The Wild Stallion.

Biography
Miranda Cosgrove was born in Los, Angeles, California on May 14, 1993. When she was three years old, she was singing and dancing in a restaurant called "Taste of LA." A talent agent was impressed with her singing, and dancing skills so he signed her up for his talent agency, leading to a career in advertising soon after, as well as other roles and shows. She began homeschooling after she finished elementary school at Maude Price Elementary School in Downey, California, and then enrolled in an online school program, which she has been doing since 2006. She is an only child. Miranda's ethnicity is English, Irish, and French, as told to People Magazine. She finds it cool how people think she is different ethnicities.

Though Miranda is single, she has dated Nat Wolff from the Naked Brothers Band. Her first kiss was when she was ten at a concert with a fan, who was much younger than her. She gets nervous when a guy leans in for a smooch, "I always get so nervous before a kiss. But I try to talk myself into it and just let things happen. If you try to force it, it'll be a bad kiss," she says.

In April 2011, she was accepted into both New York University and USC, and needed to make a decision within a few weeks. She said she would major in either Theatre or Film.

Acting
In 2001, Cosgrove's first acting role was uncredited. She was the voice of the 3-year-old Lana Lang in the first episode of Smallville. Afterwards, she had many other small roles in various television series, and appeared in a starring role as Summer Hathaway in the 2003 film School of Rock. Her claim to fame was when she was cast as Megan Parker in the 2004 Nickelodeon TV series, Drake and Josh, which gained a massive following. In 2007, she was cast in another Nickelodeon TV series, iCarly, as the main character Carly Shay, who makes her own webshow, acting alongside Jennette McCurdy, Jerry Trainor and Nathan Kress. The film Despicable Me features Miranda Cosgrove, who voices an orphan girl named Margo, and daughter-figure to an evil mastermind criminal. This film was released in 2010. In February of 2010 she announced that she was to be the new face of Neutrogena, starring in a television commercial endorsing the product. She inked a deal for 26 more episodes of iCarly, bringing the total episodes to 96. She said she still loves making iCarly and won't stop acting and singing, even with her upcoming S.A.T. tests and looking to start college next year.

She appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine talking about her career, family (her parents Tom and Chris), and her schooling from public to home schooling.

Singing
Cosgrove made her music debut in 2007, singing the theme song for iCarly called "Leave It All to Me" which features her Drake and Josh co-star, Drake Bell. On June 10, 2008, the soundtrack to iCarly was released, including Leave It All to Me and three other songs by Cosgrove, including the next singles: the cover of Amy Diamond's song "Stay My Baby" and "About You Now," originally by the Sugababes, and another track called Headphones On which failed to reach the charts. The sountrack debuted at #28 on the Billboard 200 and has sold over 200,000 copies. She released a new song, a cover of Christmas Wrapping, for the soundtrack to Merry Christmas Drake and Josh. She lip-synced About You Now and Stay My Baby at the Macy's Parade on the Build-a-Bear Float. Her first live performance was the the KCA's 2010 pre-show. She performed Kissin' U, which was shown on TV. Bam was performed as well, but never shown on television. Miranda flew to Texas to perform a mini-concert for her contest winner, was an 8 year old girl. She also performed in New York as well. After filming the 4th season of iCarly, Miranda is going on a tour in September. Miranda Cosgrove's debut album, "Sparks Fly" was released on April 27, 2010. Her hit single, "Kissin' U," was in the 80s on BillBoard Top 100 and was on Top 40 Spins. She was scheduled to sing in a live performance in NYC after NICK's "Worldwide Day of Play" special airs September 25, 2010.

She loves singing Kissin' U and kicking the beach balls into the audience.

Dancing Crazy Summer Tour
It was announced that Cosgrove will have her debut solo concert tour called Dancing Crazy Tour (dubbed Dancing Crazy Summer Tour) around the United States. Joining Cosgrove on tour was YouTube phenom, Greyson Chance, who gained notoriety in 2010 with his cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi". The trek supported her debut studio album, Sparks Fly. It features songs such as "Dancing Crazy" which was co-written by Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne with Max Martin and Shellback, who produced it. It started on January 24, 2011 in Kansas City, Missouri and was supposed to end on October 23, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona. There are a total of 44 shows all in the United States. In November, Cosgrove planned to headline six concerts in Brazil, which would have given the singer her first performances in South America.

On August 11, 2011, Miranda Cosgrove's tour bus was involved in a traffic collision Interstate 70 in Vandalia, Illinois. Five passengers were injured including Miranda Cosgrove herself, who broke her ankle. Initial reports confirmed that her tour would be postponed while Cosgrove recovered. A week later, Cosgrove released a statement stating that the tour was cancelled by the doctor's orders. Cosgrove admitted that she would resume touring by next year. (A photo of her broken ankle can be seen in her info)

Discography
See Miranda Cosgrove Discography

Trivia

 * Miranda made a cameo in the music video for Best Coast's single, "Our Deal", which was directed by Drew Barrymore and co-starred Chloe Moretz..
 * She wanted a bicycle for her 18th birthday (May 14, 2011), but she chose to fly to Memphis to help the sick children in the Stars for the Kids benefit for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
 * Miranda gets paid $180,000 per episode, second-highest of all teen stars in Hollywood, but then suddenly dropped to $150,000. Only Angus T. Jones ("Two and a Half Men") earns higher at $250,000 per episode. Victoria Justice, star of Victorious tied for eighth place, earns $12,000 per episode. But they have to pay commissions to their agents (10%), manager (10-15%), and 15% has to go in trust for the actor until he is 21, because of the Coogan law in California. That also doesn't count taxes. So, she may get to keep presently only 30-40% of her gross earnings.
 * She tweeted after taking her last final exam, and graduated high school on June 8, 2011.
 * Miranda's Top 5 favorite episodes of iCarly are iPilot, iDate a Bad Boy, iGo to Japan, iSaved Your Life, and iGot a Hot Room.
 * iPilot: "Because it is the first episode we ever did. I love looking back on it and seeing how young we were and how far the show has come."
 * iDate a Bad Boy: "Because it was Carly's first boyfriend."
 * iGo to Japan: "Because we got to jump out of a plane, get splattered by mud and hold a possum!"
 * iSaved Your Life: "Because finally after three seasons, Carly decides she actually might like Freddie."
 * iGot a Hot Room: "Because it's the first time you see Carly's bedroom and you get to see while Spencer is a little wacky, Spencer is a great brother."
 * Miranda broke her ankle in Illinois.

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