A San Diego native, Jolene Blalock left home at the age of 17 to pursue a career in modeling. Traveling through Europe and Asia, the fledgling but confident model unsurprisingly found frequent work on the runways and in print. It was on a 1998 trip back to the States that Blalock was compelled to flex her heretofore untested acting skills, and after a few commercial appearances and some skill-sharpening at Toronto's Second City Improv and the Dwight Bacquie Rehearsal Workshop, she made her acting debut on television's Veronica's Closet. Already comfortable in front of the camera, Blalock's magnetism shined through the lens and she was soon cast in the made-for-television movies Jason and the Argonauts (2000) and On the Edge (2001). After nearly passing on the role three times, Blalock read the script for Enterprise and made the decision to join the crew on their missions into the stars. Set before the missions of Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew on the original Star Trek, Enterprise tells the tales of a newly commissioned spaceship's maiden voyages into the depths of space. In 2001, the actress appeared in the television miniseries drama Diamond Hunters.