Top Models Turns Actors
Every so often individuals decide to break free from the confines of modelling and transformed their status with surprising results. Here is a run-down of the most successful models turned actors and actresses. Here we celebrate the fact that these individuals have been blessed not only with staggering beauty but exceptional acting and performing talent management.
Although these are success stories, making it in modelling is hard enough without the transition. After all, it is whole different skill set. Aspiring actors like Giselle looking ridiculous in Taxi learnt the hard way that looking pretty and acting isn’t necessarily the same thing.
The aforementioned atrocities are all but instantly forgettable, yet there have been some notable exceptions. A glance at recent Oscar winners and nominees would surprise a few to see how many began their careers on the catwalk or modelling on the pages of teen magazines.
Famke Jansen
Famke, the X-Men star started her career as an Yves Saint Laurent model before her memorable role in Golden Eye. The transition was almost seamless and we were endowed with one of the most memorable Bond girls/villains in recent memory. Clearly she has made the right move.
Cameron Diaz
Diaz was already a professional teen model, with teen modelling jobs for Calvin Klein and Levi’s before she hit the big time with films like The Mask and There's Something about Mary. Since then she has done an awful film called the Counsellor in which she kills everyone. You leave the cinema feeling just ‘bad’.
Angelina Jolie
Admittedly she was a model for all of fifteen minutes but Jolie still counts. She has since teamed up with Brad Pit to create Brangelina, the celebrity power couple, and has looked awesome as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.
Kim Basinger
Kim is a sexy screen siren from the 80’s. This Academy Award Winning actress started her life as a shampoo ad model, she’s certainly come a long way since her teen modelling days.
Milla Jovovich
Acting in the Fifth Element opposite Bruce Willis, and her ability to kick ass in Resident Evil established her as a household name.
Mark Wahlberg
The only male model we could think of that made a successful transition. The former Calvin Klein model has come a long way since his rapping Marky Mark days. Mark even had the time to do a stint in jail, busy man.
Charlize Theron
Both incredibly talented and beautiful. Some people have all the luck. Scary in the film monster, ditching her good looks for good acting.
Halle Berry
Halle used to be Miss Teen All America 1985. Now the Catwoman is now a sex symbol and Academy Award Winning Actress. Inspirational!
