"I knew it could all change after I grew up, which was something I really couldn't avoid," Chabert, who turned 27 on September 30, recalls.  "When you transition from being a child actor to an adult actor, it's rife with a lot of challenges.  Most of it stems from trying to convince people you can still act.  It's like reintroducing yourself."

That Chabert has made the leap to more adult roles with a rare smoothness is underscored by the fact she's no longer typecast as either the "Party of Five" kid or the catty teen from the seminal 2004 flick, "Mean Girls."

Case in point: The new Hallmark Channel Original Movie Elevator Girl.  It finds Chabert playing the free-spirited, artsy spark plug to Ryan Merriman's driven workaholic lawyer.  In the romantic comedy, she's one of the servers at a party honoring Merriman's character, and unlikely sparks fly when they get trapped together in an elevator during the event.

"Oh my God, I had so much fun making this movie!" Chabert gushes.  "First off, Ryan is just a total sweetheart.  He's so sweet and funny and humble and good at what he does.  He's just a breath of fresh air in a business where sometimes I find that the guy takes longer in hair and makeup than I do."

It turns out that when Chabert hung out in a trailer during the Elevator Girl shoot, it was to babysit her three Chihuahuas named Teacup, Teaspoon and, uh, Kitty ("Because when she was a puppy, everyone thought she was a kitten," she adds).  It turns out her dog walker took ill during the shoot.

"They're my kids," Chabert offers.  "I swear I'm not one of these actresses who takes their dogs everywhere!"

The only anxious moment that Chabert says she had while making Elevator Girl came, bizarrely, during the first day of shooting.  As she describes it, she was walking by a pool during what was "a sweet scene," and all she would think was "Don't trip, don't trip."

"So of course, during the last take, I'm walking along and the next thing I know my face is planted on the ground," she remembers.  "Not only did I slip, but I flew through the air and then slid like 20 feet.  Everyone was just like deadly silent.  I stayed down for a full minute because I was so mortified.  I bruised my knee up pretty bad.  But I have to say, it really broke the ice on the set in a cool way."

Fortunately, Chabert's career took no similar dives following her early splash.  She notes, "I had to go through everything on that show – my first kiss, my first bra, everything."  But she was able to land plum voice roles on Family Guy (she played Meg Griffin in the show's first incarnation) and on the toon series The Wild Thornberrys in the late '90s.

Then the exposure in "Mean Girls" helped to serve as a bridge between juvenile and grown-up for Chabert, as did a much-acclaimed star turn in the 2004 made-for-TV movie The Brooke Ellison Story.

It had all started for her back in the early 1990s when Chabert was a finalist on Star Search, followed by a two-year run on Broadway as the young Cossette in a production of "Les Miserables."

"The bar was set for me pretty high from the beginning," she believes.  "I mean, I'm in this amazing Broadway show, then a Golden Globe-winning drama.  I was very blessed.  I'm so thankful for all of those different experiences.

"But it was also really weird, so backward compared to most of my peers in the industry who were coming out of college trying to get their first job.  Instead, I was encountering typecasting issues and trying to convince people I could be whatever character they wanted me to be.  For a while, all I was offered were ‘Mean Girls'-type parts."

Now that she's continuing to move past the career hurdle that was growing up, the gracious and polite Chabert is able to keep more of an eye on the future.  She's taking to optioning books and other properties to star in and produce herself.

"I'm not sure of the path I'll be going on from here," Chabert admits, "but my goal is to take more control of what's ahead for me now that I'm an adult.  I really want to be more collaborative and creative in making my own opportunities."

She's also devoting more time than ever to her lifelong hobby of photography.  "But I like to use real film, not digital," Chabert notes.

And what of her personal life?  Chabert respectfully offers that she's dedicated to keeping her private life private, which is why you don't see much written about her in the tabloids.

"They still manage to make stuff up about me," she quickly adds.  "One time, they had me dating Jared Leto, and I've never even met him to this day.  I find that whole world very unpleasant.  I'm not a party girl.  I love life and I love to have fun, but not on the club circuit. That just isn't me."

When pressed, Chabert will acknowledge there is a special man in her life.  But that's as much as she will divulge.  However, when she's talking about the Elevator Girl storyline, the romantic inside her pops through.

"The script was really cute and fresh," she says, "and its whole idea of finding a magical connection with someone and having to pursue it really resonated with me.  These people live in different worlds and have different lives, but they can't ignore what they're feeling.

"I think the lesson is never to judge a book by its cover.  And I'm a big believer."

But Merriman will have none of this talk, of course.  Which is hardly a surprise at all.

"The truth is that I'm the lucky one," Merriman maintains.  "I feel like with all the good stuff that's already happened to me, God's got his hand on my shoulder.  It seems like He's always done the right thing for me when I needed it.  I mean, shoot, look at all the success I've had, and I'm just in my 20s.  That isn't because I'm so cool.  I really have been tremendously fortunate."

Of course, one can make the argument that we make our own luck.  And if that's the case, Merriman has put out plenty of effort to remain on a steady roll after having landed in show business at the ripe young age of 11.  That was when he was brought out to Los Angeles, after having done commercials and local theater in Oklahoma, with a phone call from filmmaker Rob Reiner.

It was 1994, and Reiner wanted Merriman to audition for the lead in his new feature, "North." The story goes that the young actor was kept waiting for 10 days after reading for the part when Reiner couldn't decide between Merriman and another young lad named Elijah Wood.

"I didn't wind up getting that, you may remember," Merriman informs.  But that turned out to be another stroke of luck.  With Wood as its star, "North" would go on to become the biggest bomb of Reiner's career, a film that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert once referred to on their show as "the worst film in history."

Merriman dodged a bullet.

"That's what I mean by God having a hand on my shoulder," he reiterates.  And right after missing out on "North," Merriman wound up getting cast in a new NBC comedy series, The Mommies, in '94 – and his career was off to the races.  He's now up to three TV series and some 25 movies in 15 years, ranging from "The Ring Two" and "Final Destination 3" to a saucy romantic comedy called Elevator Girl.

"It's the kind of project every young actor dreams about being a part of," Merriman gushes.  "I get to play a young lawyer who wears Italian suits and drives a Mercedes.  Who wouldn't want that?  In reality, I have a BMW and suits that aren't necessarily Italian.  I think they're from the Men's Wearhouse, actually."

The film is Merriman's first-ever romantic comedy in a career spent doing "more serious stuff, action and horror.  It's nice to be able to be charming and romantic on camera and not worry about the risque'."

Indeed, Merriman loved everything about Elevator Girl, including working with Chabert, whom he called, "such a great person, and such a pro.  We just had the greatest time together.  We did a lot of dancing/driving around in the Mercedes…"

Huh?  Dancing in a Mercedes?

"Oh yeah," Merriman replies.  "Haven't you ever danced in a car?  I'm a really good car dancer. Everyone should have a car dance that they do when they're partying.  Once you get into the rhythm of it, it's really easy and cool."

If that doesn't sound like the fun-loving life of an all-American boy, what does?  Actually, maybe this: Merriman married his high school sweetie, named Micol, five years ago.  She works in a "cute little jewelry store and show boutique in Burbank" while her husband is off doing his acting thing.

They lead a quiet life away from the Hollywood party circuit, drawn mostly to sports and charitable works.  It speaks volumes about the Merrimans that they moved to Los Angeles fulltime only about two years ago, selling their Oklahoma house and bringing their stuff out here by car and truck.  Before that, Ryan would book a job, work it, then go back to Oklahoma.

When he calls for an interview, Merriman's cell phone number is still the one he had back home and the same one on which he speaks to his mother an average of three times daily.

The telephone is also Merriman's lifeline.  He doesn't much go in for email and has no account on Facebook, My Space or Twitter.  His take: "Call me if you want to talk.  I might have 120 things to tell you.  That's tough to do in a Facebook message.  I'm an old-fashioned guy that way."

Actually, Merriman is old-fashioned in a lot of ways.  His preferred recreation is riding dirt bikes and playing golf, which he claims to do "like a madman.  In fact, I played four times just this week."  But he combines it with fundraising, participating in an event entitled Tee It Up For the Troops that generates money for the families of soldiers killed in action overseas.

"My brother-in-law is in the service," he explains.  "I'm there to support anything that involves the troops and the families."

While he claims to be recognized "not every day, but maybe every other day," the baby-faced Merriman believes that he's known more for a made-for-TV movie he made in 2001 at age 17 called The Luck of the Irish than his far more recent spate of horror flicks.

"People remember me from that, but they don't necessarily know it," he says.  "They'll usually think I went to high school with them.  That's the first thing.  I have to kind of break down my resume' and finally people tag it to Luck of the Irish.  It's pretty funny."

But Merriman isn't one to shrink from the recognition and is happy to get it in a town better known for chewing up actors and spitting them out than fueling their dreams.