Thompson was born in Rochester, Minnesota, one of five children of Clifford and Barbara Barry Thompson. She has two sisters, Coleen Goodrich and Shannon Katona and two brothers, Andrew (ballet dancer) and Barry. Her mother is of Irish descent.\n', '

She studied ballet as a girl and danced professionally by the age of 14, winning scholarships to the American Ballet Theatre, the San Francisco Ballet, and the Pennsylvania Ballet. Told she did not have the right body to become a prima ballerina by Mikhail Baryshnikov himself, she changed her focus to acting.\n', '

At the time, she was 20 years old and dancing professionally with American Ballet Theatre\'s Studio Company (then known as ABT II), and when the time came to decide if she would move to the main company, Baryshnikov, who was the artistic director at the time, told her, "You\'re a lovely dancer, but you\'re too stocky." In her words, that was "my epiphany when I decided to stop dancing and not be a ballet dancer. It was a wonderful moment because I could\'ve been banging my head against the wall for another 10 years."\n', '

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