Miranda Cosgrove



An American teen actress, singer and songwriter, mainly known as the manipulative and grade-conscious Summer Hathaway in School of Rock opposite Jack Black. She later gained more recognition in the Dan Schneider-produced Nickelodeon sitcoms Drake and Josh as Megan Parker and I Carly as the lead character Carly Shay. Miranda also starred in a few films like Keeping Up with the Steins, The Wild Stallion and the 2005 remake of Yours, Mine and Ours. She also lends her voice as Margo in Despicable Me.

Currently one of Nick's flagship teens and has entered the pop-rock music genre under Columbia Records.

Selected Filmography

 * 2001: Smallville (TV Series) -- Young Lana Lang
 * 2003: School of Rock -- Summer Hathaway
 * 2004-2007: Drake and Josh (TV Series) -- Megan Parker
 * 2005: Yours, Mine and Ours -- Joni North
 * 2006: Keeping Up with the Steins -- Karen Sussman
 * 2007-present: I Carly (TV Series) -- Carly Shay
 * 2009: The Wild Stallion (direct to DVD) -- Hannah Mills
 * 2010: Despicable Me -- Margo (Voice)
 * 2013: Despicable Me 2 -- Margo (Voice)

Discography

 * 2009: About You Now [EP]
 * 2010: Sparks Fly
 * 2011: High Maintenance [EP]

This actress contains examples of:
""Everybody's dancing, dancing crazy and we never stop, we never stop...""
 * Album Title Drop: "Sparks fly, it's like electricity..."
 * Awesome McCoolname: Her name might sound like common English until you translate her name to its very European origins.
 * Break Up Song: Brand New You, There Will Be Tears and Oh Oh, with all 3 being the "I'm over you" type.
 * Cat Smile
 * Character Title: Charlie, more like a One Boy Song.
 * Caught in The Rain: The music video of Kissin' U.
 * Celebrity Crush: Shia La Beouf, James Franco, Ryan Gosling, and Joseph Gordon Levitt.
 * Cover Version: About You Now (Sugababes), Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses), Shakespeare (Susan Cagle), Kiss You Up (Shontelle Layne) and All Kinds of Wrong (Claude Kelly). Miranda also sings a lot of cover songs during live performances.
 * Disgusting was originally written/sung by Ke$ha but the song was scrapped, so a toned-down version was later written for Miranda's album. Outside Europe, Stay My Baby had also been identified as Miranda's over its original Scandinavian artist Amy Diamond.
 * Dancing Is Serious Business: The video of Dancing Crazy focuses Cosgrove spending all midnight out with friends, dancing in a football field, finding romance, and coming back home just in time for her alarm clock to ring.


 * Hotter and Sexier: While her debut single Kissin U is promoted to tweendom, the song's music video seems to deviate from that demographic.
 * High Maintenance. After reaching the age of 18, her concert tours for that album is oozing with this trope in terms of her Fan Service-y outfits and more daring cover songs.
 * Her obscure tracks Party Girl and FYI have adult-like lyrics, with the latter stepping on Darker and Edgier. And these were released prior to both her well-known albums.
 * Her photoshoots for Kurv and Block magazines exemplify her gradual rise to full She's All Grown Up status.
 * Intercourse With You: Sayonara is definitely not just a dance song.
 * What Are You Waiting For gives strong Their First Time implications before parting with her lover/unrequited friend for good.
 * Irony As She Is Cast: Summer had a Hollywood Tone Deaf singing voice, while Carly lacked skill in drawing and playing the guitar. Miranda is quite proficient in all three talents.
 * Love Martyr: Beautiful Mess sings this trope, while Brand New You averts this.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: The seemingly fluffy/peppy titles Hey You and What Are You Waiting For have extremely depressing themes.
 * The break-up songs mentioned above involve bad break-ups and heartaches but set into lively upbeat music, and the songs are about being perfectly fine with the separation and moving on. In Brand New You, she's searching for someone new to prove that she won't miss him. Oh Oh has her going out with her friends and having a good time instead of being miserable, and There Will Be Tears has her reflecting on the break-up and saying "there will be tears, but they're not gonna be mine!"
 * Lyric Swap: Being under Nickelodeon's wing, it's not a surprise with regards to her song lyrics.
 * Ke$ha's Disgusting originally has "I should kill you" which is changed into "I should hate you" in Miranda's version.
 * Miranda even covered Cee-Lo Green's Fuck You in her recent tour, replacing the titular lyrics into the more-used "Forget you".
 * Meganekko: Her roles as a librarian in Just Jordan, and geek in Keeping Up with the Steins. Miranda herself can play the trope nicely.
 * Mistaken for Cheating: The plot for her music video of About You Now, which gets resolved at the end.
 * Mistaken Nationality: Miranda once posted on Twitter in response to a fan question, that people often assume she is of various nationalities (she is of English and French descent). The most common ones to come up include being Filipino, or some kind of East Asian or Latin American.
 * Money Song: Averted with Million Dollars.
 * Motor Mouth: Dan Schneider notes Miranda's fluency with rapid-fire delivery of long dialogues. Miranda herself is quite a fast talker in her interviews, and some of her songs have long rap-like lyrics (i.e. Disgusting and Face of Love) that she barely stops to catch in a breath.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Played with in iCarly; more prominent during her concert tours.
 * Miranda's apparel at the Kids' Choice Awards: 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
 * Lady in Red: iCarly Awards; Miranda also wore a Sexy Santa Dress in Big Time Rush.
 * Sexy Backless Outfit: She has a penchant for such clothes especially in recent awards events like Director's Guild and the 2012 KCA.
 * She's Got Legs: Miranda exemplifies this trope, as she's mentioned in interviews that she likes skirts and dresses; she also likes shorts, and also wears footwear geared to showcase her legs.
 * One of Us
 * Older Than They Look: She's in her late teens but could easily pass as an 8th or 9th grader.
 * Pettanko: Carly's A Cup Angst is comically lampshaded a few times.
 * Playing Against Type: Her guest role in The Good Wife and a cameo in the music video Our Deal as a beaten up gangster.
 * Raven Hair, Ivory Skin
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: Carly's early childhood best friend is played by actress Haley Ramm, one of Miranda's real-life best friends.
 * Ridiculous Procrastinator: Headphones On
 * Romance On the Set: Played straight and averted:
 * Averted for iCarly co-star Nathan Kress, even if she said she compares other guys to him.
 * Not averted for Nat Wolff of The Naked Brothers Band as they dated for two to three years when they were in their early teens.
 * James Maslow of Big Time Rush and Miranda have a lot of chemistry in the two episodes they have made involving each other (one on iCarly, one on Big Time Rush).
 * Savvy Guy Energetic Girl: High Maintenance
 * Self Backing Vocalist
 * Silly Love Songs: A huge percentage of her discography, apart from being a main theme of Sparks Fly.
 * Similarly Named Works: Her debut album Sparks Fly is not to be confused with Taylor Swift's single; its title is taken from the first two words of Miranda's single Kissin' U.
 * Take That: The Good Wife episode Bad Girls mentioned the "Disney-ghetto" a couple of times, with regards to the usual trend of image-changing from a lot of the network's teen stars. It is also worth noting that the episode title is a possible homage to a film starred by a certain Disney alumna loosely based for Miranda's character Sloan.