Entertainment> Celebrities

Brooklyn Decker's model-to-actress challenge

(Agencies)
2011-02-16 09:43

LOS ANGELES - Brooklyn Decker may be one of the more famous models in the world, but she makes a point of not acting like one.

She speaks quickly and straightforwardly in a voice filled with enthusiasm, and calls herself out when she says something cheesy or cliched (like how she's learning to "peel back the layers" of a character).

She dresses in a way that hides her figure -- today it's a draping flannel sweater over a plain white shirt and blue jeans -- and makes the jarring claim that she's "not a sexy person at all."

She doesn't hesitate to talk through a mouthful of food at a table in front of Charlie's at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles on a recent morning. Her self-deprecation has the whiff of the real.

After her late breakfast, Decker is heading to Warner Bros. for a general meeting, where she knows what she's up against. She did these studio rounds about 18 months ago, and they didn't amount to much, but now she's got two roles in the can and is slightly more hopeful. "I think people are like: 'OK, we saw her coming out of the water, now who is she? Can she carry on a conversation?'" she says and laughs. "You never know."

The 23-year-old model, most famous for baring almost everything on the cover of the 2010 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, is in the midst of is in the midst of an attempted leap that, for many before her, has launched a thousand punch lines: the model-to-actress career move.

She appears as Adam Sandler's lust object in new box office champ "Just Go With It," co-starring Jennifer Aniston, and she recently wrapped a role in the 2012 board-game adaptation "Battleship."

"I don't see myself doing catalog shoots in Madrid anymore like I was doing two years ago," she said. "I hope that the acting side of things grows."

Of course, since the 1980s, ambitious models have become goodwill ambassadors, business moguls, designers, talk-show hosts and reality TV stars who have generated millions beyond their modeling income. But very few have found a way to do that as actresses. There are the trailblazing predecessors such as Cameron Diaz, Rene Russo and Milla Jovovich -- and, on the flip side, Estella Warren, Cindy Crawford ("Fair Game," anyone?) and plenty others whose names don't even register in anyone's memory.

Aside from the "X-Men" movies, in which her mostly naked body was covered in blue paint, Victoria's Secret and SI model Rebecca Romijn has had a difficult time finding a solid foothold. Andie MacDowell, who went on to build a healthy film career, famously had all her lines redubbed in her 1984 debut, "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes."