X Symbol Channels Geek Within

X-Men vamp Rebecca Romijn-Stamos may be one of the most beautiful people alive according to People magazine, but the former model remembers a time when her looks were more likely to elicit a scowl than a howl.

"When I was a teenager I was much taller and skinnier than all my friends, and I was really uncomfortable in my skin," she tells TV Guide Online. "I didn't want anything below my neck to even exist."

My, how times have changed. Still, Romijn-Stamos says that it was her ugly-duckling phase that helped her get in touch with Mystique, the malevolent shape shifter she plays in the film version of the comic book, opening today. "This movie is for anybody who has ever felt like an outcast, even at one point in their lives," she says. "Everybody feels like an outsider at some point, so I think everybody can relate to that."

Ironically, you won't see much evidence of the 27-year-old's transformation from underdog to glamorpuss in X-Men. In fact, makeup artists spent upward of eight hours a day obscuring Romijn-Stamos's gorgeous mug ? although her awe-inspiring figure will be very much on display. "They dipped me in a vat of blue paint," she explains, adding that her resulting frustration helped her put the misery in Mystique. "Eight hours in the makeup chair turned me into an evil bitch."

And if you think she's exaggerating her character's viciousness, just head to your nearest toy store and pick up the Mystique action figure. "My friends tell me that when you squeeze my legs I do a karate chop with my arm, which I didn't know," she says. "And so now they have all created the Mystique dance. When we go dancing, they do the movement that my action figure does."