By Jacquelynn D. Powers, Portraits by Mark Liddell
t’s hard to discern if Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
is more famous for her portrayal of
Mystique in the X-Men franchise, her marriage
to former Full House star John Stamos,
her hard-to-pronounce last name, or
her days as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit
model. One thing is for sure, though: The
leggy California native would like to drop
the supermodel label from her oeuvre.
“Can we not talk about modeling?” she
asks me quite pointedly. “I haven’t done it
in six or seven years.”
Indeed, Romijn-Stamos, 31, has left
the runway behind for the more lucrative
and rewarding life of an actress, appearing
as a regular on Just Shoot Me as well as costarring
in the aforementioned X-Men
series. There was also her scorching role in
Femme Fatale opposite Antonio Banderas
and Rie Rasmussen. And this month she
has two movies being released, Godsend
and The Punisher. “They are very different,”
she notes. “But neither is a comedy,
that’s for sure.”
Godsend seems to be straight out of a
Stephen King novel, as it tells the story of
parents (Romijn-Stamos and Greg Kinnear)
dealing with the untimely death of
their eight-year-old son. A doctor (Robert
De Niro) clones the son, who becomes a
menacing young boy. “It’s scary and there
are a lot of thrilling moments,” says Romijn-
Stamos. It also deals with the very
current issue of cloning: “When we started
the movie we were like, Are we really
going to address the ethical question of
cloning? We kind of do, but in the end it’s
just a movie. Also, while we were doing
the movie, that weird group the Raelians
claimed to have actually cloned a human
being. But it’s just sci-fi at this point.”
Scientific implications aside, it was also
a fun movie to make with co-stars such as
De Niro and Kinnear. “De Niro is a really
low-key, sweet guy with a great sense of
humor,” Romijn-Stamos says. “He made
me laugh all the time, which is my favorite
thing to do.” And after shooting X2, it was
a relief to be on a smaller set: “X2 was such
a huge, over-the-top production with hundreds
and hundreds of people whose names
I never even learned. This was a much
smaller movie with a crew of 40 and I actually
got to know everyone. I did good, honest
work every day without having to worry
about nine hours of makeup.”
Makeup seems to be a huge point of
contention for Romijn-Stamos, who had
to endure countless hours of body paint
and silicone in order to transform herself
into Mystique for the X-Men movies. In
fact, it was a recurring theme throughout
our interview. So working on Godsend was
a breeze for Romijn-Stamos.
“I didn’t have to wear any makeup,”
she says. “My hair and makeup went faster
than the guys’. My biggest challenge came
in trying to sell myself as a mom, but it
was not nearly as hard as I thought it
would be. It felt pretty good.” ...
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