By Jason Dean

July 7, 2003

Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man -- promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.

-Beautiful Girls

Actually, my fond memories of that movie are more along the lines of Natalie Portman’s Marty: "I might just grow to be 5’ 10". I’ll be hot." Ms Portman may not have realized the height part of that brash prediction, but she did alright in my book on the second half of that statement.

But I digress mightily. If one looks at some of Hollywood’s casting, it would seem that there are producers and casting directors who take the opening quote to heart. Sometimes it seems that they were blinded by the pretty face and shapely figure as the audience is left thinking, "Looks good, but can’t act." However, there are times when that "promise of a better day" actually carries through and we’re treated to a new face that actually shows some promise or at least does really well with the role at hand. Thus we have an A-List of the Best Debuts by Models.

First off, we have Izabella Scorupco who falls just short of the list, though it's not due to falling short on the criteria of talent, movie quality, or beauty. Instead, I’ve had to cheat a bit on the debut part. While the majority of the world was made aware of Izabella Scorupco in 1995’s Goldeneye, she had already had the credits of actress (in Sweden), model, and pop star (again in Sweden) on her resume.

Truly on the list, we’ll start with a pair of models who are still very much thought of as women who were models first but happened to do the occasional acting gig. Elle Macpherson (Sirens) and Kathy Ireland (Alien from L.A.) gained international recognition as SI swimsuit models first before going on to other pursuits. They each fared pretty well in their debuts with the roles as well as managing to be fortunate to be in movies that were pretty decent.

An actress that was perfect in her debut but has seen a subsequent career that has fallen somewhat short is Natasha Henstridge. So what if her role in Species pretty much only required her to look good and literally be a maneater. Probably for the worse, it became a defining role for Henstridge.

In the "We’ll see how it turns out but there’s hope" category, we have Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who made her blue hued debut in X-Men and can currently be seen reprising her role as Mystique on screens right now in X2. (Ok, for you sticklers out there, yes there was Dirty Work but not many saw it and even those who did probably don’t have stunning memories of it either.) Femme Fatale might have shown that while she may not be ready to open or carry a film all on her own, the movie itself cannot be faulted for failing to put on screen what many were hoping for with regards to Romijin-Stamos.

Finally, we get to a pair who are known primarily as actresses but did indeed earn a living as models before getting that first role.

Charlize Theron made a rather memorable debut in Two Days in the Valley, which has a scene that was mentioned in a previous edition of A-List. There was also a quick listing of her more worthy films thrown in as bonus material in a previous column. So with a third mention it must be obvious; yes, I’m a rather large of fan of Theron and with luck there will be more things like Cider House Rules in her future and fewer movies like Trapped.

Serving as the inspiration and timely tie-in for the topic is Cameron Diaz, who is currently one of the Angels. However, once upon a time she was a little-known model who got cast to play the love interest opposite Jim Carrey in the Mask. After some padded outfits and an excellent performance in a well-received film, Diaz was well on her way to...hair gel and future fame.