Kurt Yue was born in Beijing, China and moved to the United States with his parents when he was four years old. He spent his formative years moving around the country from Iowa to Arizona to Ohio. Unlike many actors, Kurt never dreamed of acting when he was growing up. He never participated in drama club in high school nor did he take any theater classes in college. In fact, before the age of 27, his only acting experience was a fourth grade play (in which he played a horse). Four years after graduating college with a degree in computer science and engineering, Kurt was doing business consulting as a software developer in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the "typical young professional" working nine-to-five on weekdays and hitting the bars with friends on weekends. One Saturday night, after a night of celebrating a high school buddy's return from a tour of duty in the army, Kurt and his friends were walking back to their cars when he noticed an interesting storefront. It was the Houde School of Acting - the premier acting school in Cleveland, Ohio. Since he was looking for something to do after work at the time, this really piqued his interest. Kurt decided to jot down the contact info and, the following week, he walked into his first acting class ever.

出生在西雅图，后被父母带到洛杉矶郊区生活。12岁的时候艾丽卡立志成为一名演员。在表演、歌唱和舞蹈方面极富才华的的她不但意志坚决，而且颇为幸运，没多久就迈出了进军演艺圈的第一步——为麦当劳拍摄广告，在迈克尔·杰克逊（Michael Jackson）的《Childhood》MV中亮相，紧接着她主演了迪士尼1997年影片《反斗小宝贝》（Leave It to Beaver），年方13岁的她灵气十足、充满自信的表现得到了评论界的交口称赞。艾丽卡在电视界的同样十分出色，《欢乐一家亲》（Frasier）、《不靠天赐》（Nothing Sacred）、《The Practice》、《外星人报到》（3rd Rock from the Sun）和《被天使触动》（Touched by an Angel）等佳作一部接一部，她还因为在《不靠天赐》中的精彩演技获得《好莱坞报道》1998年度电视剧情系列剧最佳新星奖提名。

艾丽卡同时也没有放弃银幕事业，1999年她出演了迪士尼公司的电视电影《外星奇缘》（Can of Worms），2000年在导演史蒂文·索德伯格（Steven Soderbergh）的获奖影片《毒品网络》（Traffic）中，扮演一位吸毒少女的艾丽卡向世界展示了自己出众的表演才华，该角色为她赢得评论家的广泛赞誉以及MTV电影奖最佳突破女演员奖、青少年好莱坞最佳女演员奖和演员公会奖等荣誉。