Nikki Reed

Nicole Houston Reed was born in West Los Angeles, California, to Cheryl Houston, a beautician, and to Seth Reed, a production designer. She has an older brother, Nathan August Reed, and a younger half-brother, Joey Reed. Her mother is a Christian of mostly English descent as well as Irish, Scottish, German and some Italian whereas her father is Jewish. Reed was raised without religion and has identified as Jewish. She grew up around some Jewish practices, as her brother had a Bar Mitzvah.

Reed has said in numerous interviews that her early home life was "complicated". Her parents divorced when Reed was two, after her mother found her father in bed with another man. She was raised by her mother. In 2002, when Reed was 14 years old, she moved out of her mother's house and began living on her own, mainly in apartments in the Los Angeles area. After Thirteen's success, Reed returned to Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, but dropped out again after a year. She said that "mothers who were sneaking into the school at lunchtime to confront and harass her about the film" were the reason for her departure. She earned a high school diploma through homeschooling.Catherine Hardwicke, an ex-girlfriend of her father's and friend of her mother's, invited her to work on a script with her when Reed said she was interested in acting. They finished the script for the semi-autobiographical film Thirteen in six days. Producers asked Reed to play a role in the film because they had trouble casting it, as it was an "uncomfortable" role for most young actresses.

The film, also starring Evan Rachel Wood, was released in 2003 to positive reviews, gaining Reed some recognition in Hollywood as both a screenwriter and an actress. Following this, Reed was invited to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and serve as host on a number of award shows, including the Young Hollywood Awards (2003) and the Independent Spirit Awards Nomination Show, followed by the West Independent Spirits Awards, both in 2004. Reed has repeatedly been cast as sexually advanced, precocious teenagers, including her character in Lords of Dogtown (2005), also directed by Hardwicke. In early 2006, she appeared on the series The O.C., playing Sadie, a new love interest for the character Ryan Atwood. Reed appeared on The O.C. at the same time as future Twilight co-stars Cam Gigandet and Jackson Rathbone.

Reed said that her early decision to avoid acting in television series or in mainstream cinema was naïve. She had thought at the time they were not right for her, but had since gained valuable experience in them. She had a lead role in Mini's First Time, which received a limited release in the United States on July 14, 2006. Reed played a teenager who, through seduction, involves her stepfather in a plot to murder her mother. Reed has noted that her character does not "understand the weight of consequence". She said she had enjoyed playing someone who she describes as "crass" and having a "trucker's mouth". Reed's character has sex scenes. As Reed was 16 at the time and legally unable to film such scenes in an explicit way, she was filmed from the back to hide her face. On February 12, 2008, it was announced that Reed would portray Rosalie Hale in the film adaption of Twilight, the first book of a popular four-novel series. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, it became an international success.

In 2010, Jason Mewes said that he was doing a movie called K-11 with Reed and Kristen Stewart, also of Twilight. The film, directed by Stewart's mother, takes place in a dorm of the Los Angeles County Jail. It was to feature both Stewart and Reed as female characters. Later that year, Reed said that she was no longer part of the project.

In July 2010, Reed joined the cast of the lady assassin action-drama Catch .44, alongside Bruce Willis, Forest Whitaker and Malin Akerman. In November 2010, it was announced that Reed would star with Hayden Panettiere in the film Downers Grove, a movie adaptation of Michael Hornburg's novel. The screenplay was written by Bret Easton Ellis, the novelist who wrote The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho.

In December 2011, it was announced that Reed joined the cast of Pawn, an indie crime thriller directed by David A. Armstrong. The film also stars Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Common, Michael Chiklis, Sean Faris, Stephen Lang, Marton Csokas and Jessica Szohr. In July 2013, Reed joined the cast of the independent sports comedy Balls Out, alongside Jake Lacy, Kate McKinnon, Beck Bennett and Jay Pharoah. The film is about a group of college friends who get together in their final year to play a game of intramural football. In 2019 she appeared in an episode of the Hulu original TV show Dollface.