Let’s get this small confession out of the way: I love Rebecca Romijn. Despite the insane beauty, she always possesses an air of approachability that I’ve enjoyed throughout her work and having gotten the chance to interview her, I must say, I was right.
After several failed attempts to connect because of her crazy “Ugly Betty” schedule (more on that later), we finally found a time to chat and the first thing she did was unabashedly apologize for all the false-starts. “I’m so sorry that I kept canceling,” she said, in complete earnestness, just reinforcing my belief that she doesn’t buy into the “I’m a big star, you wait for me,” mentality that afflict so many other celebrities.
With pleasantries out of the way, we got down to the business at hand, talking about her new movie, “Lake City,” premiering Friday at The Tribeca Film Festival. Rebecca found the experience to be beyond enjoyable since she’s been buds with the film’s writer/director duo, Hunter Hill and Perry Moore, for years.
“I met them on Montauk Beach a couple of years ago, my husband’s parents live there in the summer, and Hunter and Perry told me they were working on a script and I was like, ‘Yeah, OK, good luck with that’ but they kept talking about it and it sounded interesting,” Rebecca told Pop Wrap. “Then the following summer they told me Sissy Spacek was involved and the script was amazing.”
So with fate properly playing its part, Rebecca headed down to Richmond, Va., to work on the very sparse production. “I didn’t have hair or makeup, they just put some brown mousse in my hair to make it dark,” she says. “Actually, the budget was so tight they [Hunter and Perry] asked me not to wash my hair so we could stretch the can of mousse out!”
But it was the perfect experience at the perfect time for Rebecca since the film was shot just before she joined the cast of “Ugly Betty” in 2007. “I play this cop, they got me an ill-fitting uniform, didn’t want anything to look too good,” Rebecca laughs. “It was fun to play a real scrubbed-down girl, especially before ‘Ugly Betty’ where I couldn’t be playing a more different part.”
Speaking about the ABC show, returning tomorrow, Rebecca has nothing but love for the cast and crew but reveals that some behind-the-scenes-swaps might be sending quite a few shake-up’s through Mode’s HQ. “They made a tremendous amount of changes, especially with the writing staff [during the writer’s strike],” Rebecca said. “And while I know I’ll be coming back next season, with all the changes, I’m not sure they can take care of my character they way they have been. So I’ll be leaving, back in a recurring capacity, but time for me to leave and find something else.” But don’t take that as an indication Rebecca dislikes the daily grind of a TV show, it’s actually quite the opposite. “I know a lot of people who do movies that look down their noses at TV. I can’t understand why everyone wouldn’t want to work on TV,” she adds. “Creatively, to work on your character, it’s extremely gratifying and it’s a fast paced process. With movies, like “X-Men”, there is a lot of waiting around. With TV, it’s go-go-go! I love it!”
OK, so Rebecca loves working on TV, but does the former model watch any of the “America’s Next Top Model”-type shows? “I watch them, I love them, I eat them up,” she said. “We at ‘Ugly Betty’ love to recreate their walks, especially Lauren’s, we can’t get enough of her runway walk! We recreate it on the set every chance we get.” And like any true fan, she’s got one model pegged to take home the title. Having plus-sized model Whitney win, “would be amazing,” she says, before adding, “she’s a little pageanty. Stop it with the waving, models don’t wave like that! Have you ever seen Gisele Bundchen waving like that? Get out!”
See? Love her!