Finding herself interested in acting at mere age of nine, Miley had her acting debut in an episode of her father's television series "Doc" in 2003, playing the guest role of a girl named Kylie. The same year she landed a small role in Tim Burton's film direction "Big Fish" in which she played the Young Ruthie. Developing an interest in music prior to her acting career, Miley who began writing songs and learning to sing while still a preteen, got a chance to explore her music skills as she was tapped to be featured in Rhonda Vincent's music video for "If Heartaches Have Wings" and to appear on "Colgate Country Showdown," a TV program which her father was hosting. It was not until she was cast in the title role of the Disney Channel's original series, "Hannah Montana" (2006), that she gained her nation wide popularity for playing a teenage girl leading a double life. She was 12 when she came to the audition of the TV series. Beside landing her eyes on the titular character, Miley also aimed for the best friends role but because she was deemed too small by the executives, she failed the first round. Nevertheless, the execs changed their mind and cast the girl who "loves every minute of her life" as Hannah Montana.
In the TV show she plays Miley Stewart, an average teenage girl dealing with school, friends, siblings, and all the other peculiarity of life for a 14-years-old and all at once as Hannah Montana, a multi-platinum pop star whose career is guided by her successful songwriter father Robby Stewart who has to keep her "double faces" secret from the public other than her close friends and family. Debuted on Disney Channel on March 24, 2006, the children's TV series quickly became an immediate success among viewers and was soon followed with the release of a soundtrack CD, "Hannah Montana," on October 24 via Walt Disney Records. The set featured Miley as Hannah Montana, singing eight songs from the show along with five related tracks, including a duet with her father Billy Ray on "I Learned from You" which appeared the last on the album. The compilation was another success, chosen the eighth best selling album of the year in the U.S., with nearly 2 million copies sold and approximately 3.2 million copies sold worldwide.
Meanwhile, the actress-singer spent the rest of the year serving as the opening act for the girl group The Cheetah Girls on 20 dates of their 39-cities tour. In March the following year, "Hannah Montana" was reissued in a special edition featuring a bonus DVD, not long after the show's theme song, "The Best of Both Worlds," was released as a single. Miley had her first LP, a double album titled "Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus," hit the market on June 26, 2007. Debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 326,000 copies sold during its first week of sales, the set has sold about 1.5 million copies worldwide by mid year and thus was certified Platinum for sales of 1.5 million copies. In the peak of her career, scandal hits when racy pictures of her leaked out on the Internet. As a role model for teens, Miley was criticized for setting a bad example. This would be put on scrutiny more when she posed for Vanity Fair half-naked although she apologized later on.
Due to the enormous success, Miley was granted the title of the 59th "Most Influential People" list made and released by Time magazine in May 2008 as well as the #35 "2008 Forbes Celebrity 100" with an estimated earnings of $25 million during June 2007 to June 2008. Her wax figure on Madame Tussauds was also unveiled in March 2008. Miley's career was in the making. A plan on big screen version of Hannah Montana was quickly developed and Miley, reprising her role will star in "Hannah Montana: The Movie" which is due for a May 1, 2009 release. Before the movie project came to public, Miley will release a second studio album called "Breakout" which first single "7 Things" has made an impressive chart performance. A song about an attack to her ex, it entered at #84 on Billboard Hot 100 before climbing up to #10 in its third week. "Breakout" is due to be released on July 22, 2008.
