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Rebecca Alie Romijn (born November 6,
1972) is an American film and television actress and
former fashion model.
Early life: Romijn (pronounced
"Ro-maine") was born in Berkeley, California
to Jaap Romijn, a custom furniture maker, and Elizabeth
Kuizenga, a public school English teacher and textbook
author. Her father, a native of Barneveld, is Dutch, and
her mother is a second-generation Dutch American who met
Romijn's father while studying in Europe.
Romijn's maternal grandfather, Dr. Henry
B. Kuizenga, was a Presbyterian minister and seminary
professor. Many sources say that she was once nicknamed
the "Jolly Blonde Giant" but she has admitted
to making that up 'for a laugh'. While studying music
(voice) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she
became involved with fashion modeling and eventually
moved to Paris, France for more than two years.
Career: Among other jobs, Romijn modeled for the
swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated and for Victoria's
Secret. She also was the host of MTV's House of Style
from 1998 to 2000. Romijn, a polyglot, is fluent in
French and Dutch. Rebecca is a fixture on annual lists
of the beautiful women by publications such as Maxim
(2003-2007), AskMen.com (2001-,2003, 2005-2006) and FHM
(2000-2005)
In 2000's X-Men, Romijn had her first major movie role
as "Mystique"; she returned to the role in
2003's sequel X2: X-Men United, and again for X-Men: The
Last Stand (2006). In these movies her costume consisted
of blue makeup and some strategically placed prosthetics
on her otherwise nude body. In X2: X-Men United she
shows up in a bar in one scene in her "normal"
look, and also in X-Men: The Last Stand, she appears as
a dark-haired "de-powered" Mystique.
She had her first leading role in Brian
De Palma's Femme Fatale (2002). She also has starred in
movies such as Rollerball, The Punisher and Godsend. She
played the leading role in Pepper Dennis, a short-lived
TV series on The WB. This series showcased Romijn's
talents for comedy, singing, modeling, drama, and
adventure.
Twice-named one of People magazine's "50 Most
Beautiful People,” this supermodel-turned-actress
worked hard to prove she was not just another pretty
face, often taking on roles that required her to be
goofy and engaging, not just good-looking.
Nearly six feet tall, blond Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was
born and raised in Berkeley, California, the daughter of
a Dutch custom furniture-maker and an American-born
Dutch mother who taught English as a second language. In
interviews, she insists that growing up in that
"hippie environment" taught her and her sister
not to care about their looks.
Nevertheless, it was her stunning appearance that
attracted the attention of modeling scouts and casting
directors and allowed her to live the life she'd dreamed
of. A poor student, Romijn-Stamos, was persuaded by a
scout during a semester break from her freshman year at
University of California at Santa Cruz to give modeling
a try. The opportunity to travel and make money led her
to move to Paris where she worked for the world's top
fashion and glamour magazines for three years before
moving back to the United States in 1995.
Within a couple of years of her move to New York City,
Romijn-Stamos saw her television career take off when
she was hired as the host of MTV's "House of
Style", a position formerly held by fellow
supermodel Cindy Crawford. It was here that
audiences--and casting directors--first realized that
this supermodel was also gifted with a winning,
sometimes daffy, personality and impeccable comic
timing. She built on that reputation in 1998 when she
made her TV acting debut as David Schwimmer's messy
girlfriend on the top-rated NBC sitcom
"Friends".
In the years that followed, this Sports Illustrated
swimsuit model was offered dozens of film and TV roles,
most of which expected her to just show up and look
good--something she had grown tired of doing. Instead of
trading on her looks, she opted to take on small, funny
roles in movies like "Dirty Work" (1998, as a
bearded lady), starring Norm Macdonald and "Austin
Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" (1999), opposite
Mike Myers.
She teamed with yet another "Saturday Night
Live" alum, David Spade, to skewer her image
playing a vapid supermodel who married Spade's Finch on
the hit NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me" in 1999.
The next year, the model-actress ventured into more
dramatic territory, taking on the role of the evil
mutant Mystique in Bryan Singer's big-screen version of
the comic book series "X-Men". The job
required her to don blue body paint and scales, making
her virtually unrecognizable to her fans. Singer was
reportedly thrilled to have a model who was used to
sitting in a makeup chair for hours play the part.
Romijn-Stamos began to graduate to higher-profile roles,
but unfortunately they were routinely in dreadful films
that focused largely on her physical assets and not her
ability to deftly play light comedy. The sci-fi action
remake "Rollerball" (2002) was a leaden
disaster of near-epic proportions, in which she was
saddled with an unattractive wig, a Russian accent and a
clunky script-the movie got more notice for the actress'
cut full frontal nude scene than anything else. She next
appeared, to good effect, in the 2002 film
"Simone," playing an actress who publicly
doubles for the title character, a computer-generated
actress that audiences believe is real-Romijn-Stamos'
brief moments were effective but the film was never
greater than the sum of its parts.
Also in 2002 she landed her first starring role in Brian
De Palma's erotic thriller "Femme Fatale,"
playing a sexy former con woman who is drawn into all
manner of illicit intrigue in an attempt to stay on the
straight and narrow. But De Palma's notoriously weak
taste in material prevailed and the film was never on
par with the quality of the camerawork or the
spectacular beauty of the actress' scantily clad body.
Next up was a return engagement as Mystique in "X2:
X-Men United" (2003), the superior sequel in which
Romijn-Stamos' character received even more screen time
(including a memorable scene in her own her
blonde-haired, non-blue persona) yet remained as
mysterious and elusive as her name implies (following
the mega-success of the two films, Fox and Marvel were
reportedly developing a potential spin-off
"Mystique" film). Just days before the
premiere of her next comic book film "The
Punisher" (2004)—also with Marvel and producer
Avi Arad—news broke that the actress had split with
her husband Stamos.
Despite the personal strife, the resultant media
attention surrounding the actress in that film—in
which she played a neighbor of the gun-toting superhero
in one of her least convincing performances—and the
sci-fi thriller "Godsend" (2004) which opened
just weeks later—where she and Greg Kinnear play a
couple who raise a clone of their dead child with
unhappy results—catapulted her into the A-list ranks
of in-demand celebrities, and promised an equally
polarizing effect on her acting career.
After dropping Stamos from her name, Romijn revived
Mystique for the third installment of the series,
“X-Men: The Last Stand” (2006), directed by Brett
Ratner. This time, the mutants face a peculiar choice
after a cure for mutations is found: retain their
uniqueness and remain isolated from society or give up
their strange powers and become human. Returning to
television, the actress got her first starring role in
the one-hour drama, “Pepper Dennis” (WB, 2005-2006),
playing a workaholic journalist whose life is thrown
into chaos when her sister suffers an early mid-life
crisis and moves in with her.
To make matters worse, she loses her opportunity at the
anchor chair thanks to the underhanded efforts of a
former one-stand. The show debuted on the WB in
April—not the best time of year to premier a new show.
Meanwhile, a lame marketing effort that showcased
Romijn’s stellar physique rather than her acting chops
or the show’s strong writing doomed “Pepper
Dennis” to a poor showing in the ratings right from
the start. The show failed to make the slate on the
newly-formed CW—the network formed after the merger of
the WB and UPN
In January 2007, Romijn made her first appearance on the
ABC series Ugly Betty as a full time regular. She plays
Alexis Meade, a male-to-female transsexual and the
sibling of lead character Daniel Meade.
Personal life: She married actor John Stamos on
September 19, 1998. During her marriage, she used the
name Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in both her personal and
professional life. The couple announced their separation
on April 12, 2004 and divorced on March 1, 2005.
Romijn was asked by Elle Magazine in April 2002 whether
making Femme Fatale had given her any new ideas about
her sexuality. She said, "You know, in my early
twenties I wondered if I was interested in women and so
I kind of, well ... did my homework. [Grins] And it
turns out I'm pretty straight". She has since
returned to using her birth name, professionally. In
September 2005, Romijn and actor Jerry O'Connell
announced their engagement. |
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