Amanda Bynes - Biography

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Though first introduced to audiences as a teen, funny, fresh-faced Amanda Bynes has displayed a veteran's knack for comedy. Likened to a young Lucille Ball or Gilda Radner, Bynes was born and raised in Thousand Oaks, California, and spent her summers at comedy camp, which led to her discovery at age ten by teen-actors-turned-Hollywood producers Brian Robbins and Dan Schneider at a showcase performance at Los Angeles' Laugh Factory. The producers immediately tapped her as a regular performer on their Nickelodeon youth-skewed sketch comedy series "All That" (1995- ) in 1996.

After her first season on the show, Bynes was nominated for a 1997 Cable Ace Award and subsequently graduated to become the star of her own self-titled Nickelodeon series "The Amanda Show" (1999-2002), a hybrid of sketch comedy and animation in which she played such characters as Judge Trudy, a kid judge who always rules in favor of kids; Miss Elegance, a woman who at first glance appears to be refined and classy until you spend a few minutes with her; and Penelope Taynt, an obsessed admirer of Amanda Bynes.

Bynes' first feature film role came in 2002 opposite Frankie Muniz in the comedy "Big Fat Liar," playing the wholesome girl who accompanies Muniz on his quest for revenge against the sleazy Hollywood producer who stole his student paper for a blockbuster movie. Later that year Bynes was tapped to star in her own primetime network series opposite Jennie Garth on the WB sitcom "What I Like About You" (2002- ), playing young Holly Tyler, who's sent to live with her uptight career woman sister in New York when her father takes a job in Japan. The series focused on Bynes' flair for broad physical comedy and her more subtle slapstick style and proved to be a reliable ratings grabber. Her network's parent company Warner Bros. borrowed her and cast her in her debut feature film "What a Girl Wants" (2003), in which she plays an spirited American teen who travels to London to meet the aristocratic father she's never known and is plunged into stuffy British high society. Then in the animated feature Robots (2005), Bynes was the voice of Piper, a robot who befriends an idealist inventor (voiced by Ewan McGregor) after he arrives to the bustling metropolis, Robot City.