Most striking as the ambitious cheerleader in the whipped-cream bikini in Varsity Blues, but memorable also as the goth girl in Drive Me Crazy and the Hollywood climber in The House on Haunted Hill, Ali Larter becomes a leading Lady next month opposite Devon Sawa in Final Destination.
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DENNIS HENSLEY: So, Final Destination. Don't tell me, you play the foxy Stewardess?
ALI LARTER: No. [Laughs] I play a loner girl who's going with her French class to Paris, and this boy has a premonition that the plane's going to go down. So at the last second she gets off the plane, and minutes later it explodes. Then the whole town turns against him and the two of us go or this quest to figure out why he had the premonition.
Q: Do you kiss Devon Sawa?
A: I kiss all of the boys in my movies.
Q: Are you kissing anyone in real life right now?
A: I've got a crush happening and it's fabulous. I love having a crush, where your stomach goes crazy and you can't wait for him to call. I live for that shit.
Q: You've been modeling since you were 13. When did you come to Hollywood?
A: Four years ago. I followed a man from Miami. Three months later he left me, and the only person I knew here was Amy Smart. We'd been roommates in Milan five years before. She took me under her wing and we've been best friends ever since.
Q: You were on the cover of Esquire a few years ago in that much-talked-about profile of the fictitious starlet Allegra Coleman. Is that what jump-started things for you?
A: Oh yes. Everyone was calling and I got an agent and manager through that.
Q: Describe your worst haircut.
A: I did a Vidal Sassoon commercial where I was the Bad Hair Girl and they cut my hair to my shoulders in this '80's cut.
Q: Were they like, "The good news is you got the job, the bad news is you're the Bad Hair Girl"?
A: Yes, followed by, "And you're going to make $50,000 in one day." I was like, 'I'll be any-thing you want me to be."
Q: Ever had any other jobs besides modeling and acting?
A: I was a coat-check girl at Vincent Lombardi's Italian restaurant in South Jersey. I'd sit there and eat bread sticks and make $150 a night. The old Italian men would get drunk and offer me 20 dollar bills.
Q: If you could switch sexes for a day, what would you tike to experience?
A: Going to Vegas with the guys and, like, going to a strip club and drinking beer and watching the girls. That Looks like fun.
Q: Where do you go to chill out?
A: I just went to Palm Springs for the first time, Loved it. You just lay by the pool, read books, swim, get mas-sages, go the bar and drink Coors Light. You're totally anonymous. It's cool.
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Dennis Hensley