The Rebecca Romijn Fanpage

Mr. Showbiz: You've been wed now for two years. What's the most challenging part of married life?
Rebecca Romijn: Compromise. Who wins wrestling matches, who has to let the dogs out at night. [Laughs] But my husband and I are really good friends. We're like two goofy kids. We love to make each other laugh and have fun. We go to amusement parks and goof off. We can literally sit for hours and just people-watch.

Mr. Showbiz: How did you two meet?
Rebecca Romijn: It was six years ago in New York during Fashion Week. We met at a party and then kept running into each other. Afterward, we started a [cross-country] phone relationship for a couple of months. Finally I came out to Los Angeles and we had our first date at Disneyland and sort of fell in love with each other at first sight.

Mr. Showbiz: When you attended the University of California-Santa Cruz, what did you want to be?
Rebecca Romijn: I was going to go into psychology and work with abused children.

Mr. Showbiz: What prompted you to suddenly move to Europe and become a model?
Rebecca Romijn: I was very poor financially and very restless. I told my dad, who's from Holland, that I felt like traveling, and he was all for it. A friend who modeled for an agency in San Francisco kept suggesting I go and see them. And all through high school, people told me I should try modeling, but I was very self-conscious. I didn't think I looked right for it. In college, though, I was so poor and wanted to travel so badly that I was, like, OK, I'll try anything. The day I went to the agency, a visiting European scout invited me to come to Paris for the summer and model. Then they convinced me to stay by saying, "We'll make it worth your while." So I wound up living in Paris for three years.

Mr. Showbiz: You must have traveled quite a bit, too.
Rebecca Romijn: It was phenomenal. I got to a point where I knew Europe better than this country. I hadn't even been to New York then. I knew the West Coast, and that was it. Then I traveled all over Africa and Greenland and Iceland. I've been to Morocco, like, 10 times.

Mr. Showbiz: Do you still model?
Rebecca Romijn: I think I'll always be taking pictures in some capacity for the rest of my life. I do some modeling here and there. But yesterday, when we were shooting pictures for X-Men international publicity, it was so funny: I forgot how to model for a few minutes. I hadn't posed for a still camera in about three months. I was like, "Oh, I don't remember!" I forgot how to angle my body and all the little things that used to just click right in automatically. I'm not on autopilot anymore.

Mr. Showbiz: How did you get started in acting?
Rebecca Romijn: I auditioned for Friends. Luck of the draw! And then the creator-producer of Just Shoot Me, who had approached me a couple of other times, asked if I wanted to do something on the show. I didn't feel ready before and had turned it down. But finally I went to his office. He said, "We know you're green and don't think you know how to act, but we'll make it as easy for you as possible. If you don't feel you can handle the jokes, we'll write around you. If you want to try some, we'll give you the opportunity." So I'm sitting there going, "You know what? Nobody else is ever going to be this accommodating. This is unbelievable. I better take him up on it."

Mr. Showbiz: Are you really serious about it?
Rebecca Romijn: I'm trying to make the transition. It's an exciting time for me but a little scary, as well it should be when you're challenging yourself. My modeling career was great and I had a lot of fun, but then it slowly became something I was just doing for the money. So it's nice to be expanding my horizons.

Mr. Showbiz: What are you scared of?
Rebecca Romijn: I get a little caught up in the stigma of "Model-Turned-Actress." People like to make fun of models who try and do the acting thing. But there are so many brilliant and hugely successful actors that were models. Like Cameron Diaz, Minnie Driver, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Rene Russo, Kim Basinger, Geena Davis. There are those who can do it and those who can't.

Mr. Showbiz: Do you go on many acting auditions?
Rebecca Romijn: I'm auditioning and reading a lot of scripts and TV shows as well. I'm only interested in doing things I really respond to. I don't want to force myself into something that I don't think is well-written.

Mr. Showbiz: What's been the roughest time for you?
Rebecca Romijn: The point in my career that I was unhappiest was just before I started working for MTV. I was doing a lot of catalog modeling purely for the money. If I don't continue to challenge myself, I get bored out of my skull. When I get bored, then I know something's wrong, and I have to shake things up a bit.

Mr. Showbiz: What else do you want to do?
Rebecca Romijn: I might get into singing again. I studied voice when I was a teenager.

Mr. Showbiz: What's the most unconventional thing you've done in your life?
Rebecca Romijn: Moved to Paris at 18. I didn't speak one word of French. I didn't know anything about the industry I was getting myself into. I didn't know one person living in Paris. I didn't have anywhere to live. I just got on a plane and flew there with no money and sort of trusted that everything would be OK. At the time, it didn't seem like such a big deal. But wow, that was so brave of me!

Original article: Mr. Showbiz