Rebecca Romjin-Stamos: Rebecca Goes X

"Have people tended to give you a hard time because you're such a dish?" I ask. Romijn-Stamos lets forth a hearty laugh. "People don't want to like pretty people. In fact, I've discovered that the general public really wants to hate good-looking people. Sometimes I find myself having to try extra hard to be goofy and disarming to prove to people that, yeah, I pick my nose just like you do. In a way, I don't blame people for judging pretty people. I find that a lot of them, because they've sailed along for most of their lives just for being pretty, don't feel they need anything else to get by on."

Did modeling manage to convince Romijn-Stamos of her sexiness? "I sometimes think I'm sexy," she answers, laughing. "I don't think you can try to be sexy. You are or you aren't. When I see somebody trying to be sexy, I can read it immediately. What I think is great is that people like Cameron Diaz are bridging the gap there used to be between beautiful, sexy and funny. It's refreshing that you can actually respect a beautiful and sexy star for the work she's done, for her talent. And there's Pamela Anderson Lee--say what you want, but I'm a big fan. I'm glad she exists because there's no one like her, although a lot of people try. She's really cornered an international market. She's such a fantasy and she's our pin-up girl now. I don't look at myself and think 'sexy person,' that's for sure. I never take myself seriously. I look at some of chose Sports Illustrated photos I've done and go, "Who is that very serious girl?' You're talking to someone willing to go on 'The Tonight Show' in a full Dolly Parton outfit to do an impression, you know what I mean?"

This attitude helps explain why Romijn-Stamos is close friends with stars like Kristen Johnston (whom she calls "big, loud, strong and adorable underneath all that boom-boom-boom!") and Elle Macpherson ("a brilliant business-woman, sexy, chic, amazingly seductive in her dealings with people"). But her closest friend is easily her husband, so I ask about his role in her transition out of modeling. "I was silting in the kitchen with John and I said, 'I'm really restless and unhappy with my career. How can I shake things up?' He asked, 'What do you want to do?' I told him, 'I want to get into TV,' and he said, 'OK, you've got this personality, but you need to develop it in front of the camera.' I knew I would be taking a huge cut in pay--it's amazing what people pay a model--but we sort of used my Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret profiles to maneuver me onto 'Conan O'Brien' and 'The Tonight Show.'"

Indeed, they did. With no previous TV experience, she emerged as a talk show host's dream. She was genuinely funny, game and sweet-spirited, and everybody cakes notice when a ridiculously beautiful girl can be ridiculous. Though she couldn't afford to stop modeling yet, she followed in the footsteps of Cindy Crawford and Daisy Fuentes and in 1998 became host of MTV's "House of Style," despite having given what she calls a "disastrous" audition. She wanted the job so much she phoned the producer from a Caribbean airport en route to a modeling shoot and begged for it. "I said, 'I know I can do this well and I really think you should hire me.'" And they did. "Now I rewrite the scripts with my husband and comedian friends." The show made her exponentially more famous and won her the devotion of 15-year-old girls everywhere.

She won devotion, too, from moviemakers, but the first film roles they offered she didn't take. "The failure rate of being just another model-turned-actress is so high," she observes. "I remember turning down a movie costarring Joshua Jackson that I don't even know if they're still going to make. I was supposed to be playing a supermodel and I was like, 'No, thanks.' They also kept asking me to audition for the new James Bond movie, but I didn't want co put myself out there as if I were saying, 'Now I'm ready to star in a movie.' I did a little cameo as a drunken bearded lady in Norm Macdonald's Dirty Work just because John and I know Norm and it sounded silly. I did Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me for similar reasons and we wound up becoming friends with Mike Myers and his wife. Mostly, I was completely fighting the actress thing, especially if it meant only playing a supermodel. That was my rule: no supermodel parts."

Why then, after she'd made her acting debut in a 1998 "Friends" episode playing what one character called "the most beautiful girl in the world," did she jump into playing a supermodel on NBC's hit sit-com "Just Shoot Me"? "They kept asking me to come on the show, and they finally sac me down and said, We know you haven't had any acting experience and we're willing to make this as comfortable for you as possible. If you want to be funny, we'll give you those chances. If you don't, we'll write around you. We want you to marry David Spade's character and do a few episodes. Are you willing?' How many opportunities am I going to get like this? The show has amazing writing, a talented cast--I mean, Wendie Malick is the funniest woman on TV--and I just wanted to let that stuff rub off on me. They've had a number of models on that show trying to act. The cast calls them 'the fake actresses.' At first with me, they were like, 'The fake actress is here,' and then they were like, 'She got the joke out--yea for the fake actress!' I think they ended up genuinely liking me and now they say, 'You're a real actress now, but can we still call you the fake actress?' It's gotten more and more comfortable for me on the set, so I'm getting loose and having much more fun with it."

And that brings us to X-Men, her first substantial foray into film. The movie version of the comic book sensation X-Men is being directed by The Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer for something like $100 million, and features Academy Award nominee Sir Ian McKellen and winner Anna Paquin, as well as Halle Berry, James Marsden and new Australian sizzler Hugh Jackman. So does this make her an even more real actress? "Well, I'm going to have my own action figure, so that does put me in another league, doesn't it?" she observes, laughing. "Actually my part is pretty small and I don't say that much."

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