Rachelle Lefevre grew up in a bilingual Montreal household where her interest in performing developed in the home dance routines she performed to the songs of Madonna. Though she couldn’t sing, she enjoyed the rush that came with imitating the Material Girl; she became convinced that her future stardom would be accompanied by marriage to Johnny Depp.

Following her graduation from Centennial Academy, a private high school, Rachelle Lefevre got her first taste of the arts as a student at Dawson College, where she studied Creative Arts. During summer months, she studied theatre at Massachusetts' Walnut Hill School, before enrolling at McGill University to study literature and education. She was working as a waitress at a sushi restaurant while in university when a customer, a local TV producer, heard she had acting aspirations and offered her an audition for a series called Student Bodies. While she didn't get the role, the audition opened the door to other opportunities and eventually led to a 1999 gig as Stacey, the cheerleader captain who takes an interest in a teenage vampire, on the TV series Big Wolf on Campus. She remained on the series for a full season before returning to her university studies.

After departing Big Wolf on Campus, Rachelle Lefevre turned her attention to cinema, co-starring in the Canadian effort Stardom (featuring Jessica Pare and Dan Aykroyd), Abandon with Katie Holmes, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the 2002 espionage dramedy starring Sam Rockwell and directed by George Clooney. Eager to seek out more acting opportunities, Lefevre moved to California in 2004 and immediately found work with Penelope Cruz in Noel and Charlize Theron in Head in the Clouds. She later wound up on television on a pair of FOX series, Life on a Stick and Pool Guys, before switching to ABC for What About Brian, though none of the shows found much success