Rebecca Romijn Gives Us the Scoop!
Rebecca Romijn, Pepper Dennis
With a brand new series, another
X-Men movie and impending nuptials to
Crossing Jordan's No. 1 hottie all on tap,
Rebecca Romijn is walking on air. TV Guide invited the star of WB's
Pepper Dennis (Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET) to comment on all the top stories going on in her life.
TV Guide: On your comedy series Pepper Dennis, you play a TV news reporter who'll humiliate herself if it means getting her story. Share some memorable real-life press encounters.
Rebecca Romijn: Once I went to Rome to do press for X-Men 2. I was sitting on a dais, answering questions, and this guy starts throwing roses at me from the sideline and shouting things in Italian. I don't speak Italian. I was like, "Sir, are you trying to get my attention?" [Another time] I was in Japan for Femme Fatale and it was the Japanese version. [The reporter] was only wearing his tighty whities and an apron. It was like, "Are you making fun of me? Is this a good thing?"
TV Guide: You're from Berkeley, California. What's it like to be a supermodel raised in the heart of Birkenstock U.S.A.?
Romijn: It's not a place where anyone ever let you skate by on the way you look. When I moved to Paris right before I turned 19, it was like [I'd enrolled in] finishing school — I learned about makeup, hair, how to be chic. At the same time, I took all of that with a grain of salt, like, "Where I come from, this is baloney; nobody is going to let you get away with this." I loved the idea of somebody who was very connected to her roots posing as this international fashion model.
TV Guide: At what age did you start to enjoy being 5-foot-10?
Romijn: Not until I started modeling. When I was in high school, all my friends were so petite and so cute and all the clothes looked so good on them. Literally every single pair of pants I wore were floods. I just felt so uncomfortable about everything from the neck down and covered myself up in as many layers as I possibly could. Then I started modeling. All of a sudden I was like, "Wow, I'm getting paid to be a tall skinny person."
TV Guide: America's Next Top Model: How real is it?
Romijn: Well, [Top Model judge] J. Alexander literally taught me how to walk right before my first fashion show. He was the one hired by all the agencies in Paris to teach the girls how to walk. I don't remember him being as kooky — although he's very flamboyant and over-the-top. But he was fun, the real deal.
TV Guide: Now that we're on the third installment of the X-Men franchise [X-Men: The Last Stand opens May 26], does your blue supervillain character, Mystique, get more to do?
Romijn: No, I do less. [Laughs] I can't reveal anything, but it's a short but highly dramatic story line.
TV Guide: OK, so there's TomKat. There's Brangelina. Now that you're engaged to Jerry O'Connell from Crossing Jordan, what's your tabloid contraction?
Romijn: I don't know! But I'm pretty sure [Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes] didn't come up with TomKat, so I think you'll have to come up with one on your own. But people do keep asking me if I'm going to take Jerry's last name. I've decided I'm just going to take the O: Rebecca O'Romijn.
TV Guide: Have you two been chased by paparazzi?
Romijn: Once in a while we get followed. We've actually ended up driving to Universal [Studios] and using Jerry's pass to get onto the lot just to lose these people. We sit there for five minutes, then turn around and leave. We shoot Pepper Dennis at Fox, so next time we'll use my pass.
TV Guide: Is there anything you can tell me about the wedding?
Romijn: Obviously, I've been through it before. [Romijn is divorced from John Stamos.] I had a big wedding, and I don't think I want to do that again. It won't be a big, over-the-top thing. It won't be for anyone but ourselves.
TV Guide: You're 33; can we expect lots of little O'Romijns soon?
Romijn: I am now at that point in my life when I see pregnant women, I get tears in my eyes. I can't wait to have kids with Jerry! I've never seen him in a bad mood. He has so much energy. He's fun to be around all the time.
