Sarah Chalke is a Canadian television and movie actress. She was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and was raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the one of the three daughters of Douglas and Angie Chalke. Her mother is originally from Rostock, Germany. According to a Scrubs commentary track, she used to attend the German school in her hometown twice a week. Her first language is English, although she speaks French fairly well and German fluently. Chalke graduated from Handsworth High School in North Vancouver in 1994.

Chalke's acting career began at the age of eight when she began appearing in musical theater productions. At 12, she became a reporter on the Canadian children's show KidZone. In 1993, she took over the role of Becky (Conner) Healy on Roseanne from Lecy Goranson; she also made a cameo appearance as a different character in the Roseanne episode "Halloween: The Final Chapter". She returned briefly to Canada where she starred in the CBC Television drama Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (1998-1999).

In 2001, she was cast as Dr. Elliot Reid in the NBC comedy series Scrubs. She has appeared in several feature films, including Ernest Goes to School and Cake, as well as several episodes of How I Met Your Mother. She also appeared in Channel 101's The 'Bu with The Lonely Island, a parody of the hit show The O.C., but was credited as "Pamela Fenton". In 2007, she appeared as a supporting character in Chaos Theory, which starred Ryan Reynolds In 2008, Chalke became the spokesperson for a line of women's underwear by Hanes that included a series of commercials directed by her Scrubs co-star Zach Braff