Eva Mendes

Just three years ago, Eva Mendes was a student at Cal State Northridge, clueless about her future. Currently she's costarring with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in the cop drama Training Day and looking toward the release of All About the Benjamins with Ice Cube.

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This past summer, she filmed Robert Rodriguez's much-anticipated Once Upon a Time in Mexico with costars Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe.

Back in school, Mendes had been "lost as hell," when, through a neighbor, she met the casting agent for Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror. She took a part as a summer job, and claims that in the process she reinvented schlock horror. "I was horrific," she says with a laugh. But the unexpected challenge of acting spurred her to drop out to try movies full-time, and she's since been spotted as a gutsy lesbian in Urban Legends: Final Cut and a sexy siren in Exit Wounds, alongside DMX and Steven Seagal.

Mendes has nothing but praise for her Training Day costars Washington and Hawke. "I'm just mad about both of them," she gushes. "I got spoiled."

And speaking of being indulged, she got an on-screen treat from Rodriguez this summer at the end of her stint on the sanguinary Once Upon a Time. "Literally, the end of my last day, Robert said, 'Wait, you haven't killed anybody yet, have you?' And I said, 'No, I've shot people, but I haven't killed anybody.' So he's like, 'OK. Who do you wanna kill?'"

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Jillian O'Connor