A very nice interview and what a beautiful shoot she did with photographer Ezra Patchett. And sorry guys Sophie is NOT doing playboy so read it and find out more.
Sophie Monk ‘I’ve made some stupid decisions’
After making more headlines for her love life than her career, Sophie Monk is shifting her attention back to her Hollywood dreams.
Sophie Monk is laying herself bare. No, she’s not shooting her Playboy cover (more of that later). The 31-year-old is revealing a lot more than just skin as we sit down to chat on a sunny day in Hollywood.
Aware that her fellow Australians might be wondering what the hell she’s been up to in LA for the past five years, she’s here to set the record straight.
“I get that people don’t know what I’ve been doing all this time,” she says. “They wonder what I’ve been working on. But I’ve produced five of my own [TV] pilots for the major networks. It’s been tough – none of them have been picked up. The producers messed up and have apologised to me. I think there were too many chefs in the kitchen. Shows that were meant to get the green light, didn’t, and movies that were meant to be massive, weren’t, but I just keep going and going.”
She certainly does. Despite the lack of credible entries on her CV of late – it’s been five years since her success on films such as Click and Date Night – Monk never seems to wander too far from the gossip columns. But while she spends her days auditioning, hosting events and running her production company (which is currently working on a new reality TV show – one Monk will produce, not star in), it’s her personal life that attracts most attention.
The more recent cause for a skyward shoot of eyebrows was her claim last month that she’d been offered $1 million to pose nude for Playboy. $1 million? Really?
“Yep, it was true,” says Monk, not seeming to mind that some critics said she added extra zeros to the figure for impact. “You don’t get the $1 million all at once. It’s partly for the shoot, and then for promotional work and appearances, so it’s broken up.”
Monk says she’ll pass on the offer, but she won’t rule it out for the future. “I don’t think it’s the right time,” she says. “I’m not opposed to it – I think I can pull it off. But I’m not promoting anything right now, so why do it?”
After today’s relaxed photoshoot, the model/singer/actor/radio host/producer is more than ready to answer a few questions and, somewhat surprisingly, she doesn’t mind the tough ones. In fact, any suggestion her rising star never really took off is met with a smile and glint of determination.
“Hollywood is so hard; I’ve learnt that you never feel safe,” she says. “I have friends who are very successful, and even they still worry about their future. It’s a constant fight and you just have to keep pushing.”
Despite the hard work, Monk isn’t ready to quit. “I’m not jaded, but I do believe you have to look for the right things. I don’t want to be a reality TV star – that’s not for me. I have three movie offers and they all shoot at the same time. I think I can do two of them, I just have to decide which two.
“I’ve made some stupid decisions, so I have to be careful. I once said no to a film that was a number-one hit. And Date Movie had the smallest budget of any movie I’d been in, and it went to the top of the box office.”
Since her start as a fresh-faced, reality-TV produced singer with pop group Bardot in 1999, Monk’s been embroiled in various controversies. First off, she’s no stranger to a ‘he’s the one’ moment and has been engaged twice. In 2006 it was to Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden – who shortly after splitting with Monk was Paris Hilton’s temporary beau – and, this year, to French millionaire Jimmy Esebag. The relationship ended five months ago, but not before Monk had gushed on Aussie radio about her 50-year-old lover, saying, “He’s a keeper. It feels right – I think you know when you know.”
In between, she dated LA plastic surgeon John Diaz, whom she found in bed with another woman.
She blames Hollywood’s ‘take, take, take’ attitude for her questionable taste in men.
“People see me as a person who can make them some money, which makes it hard to make real friends. I’m asked to do a lot of stuff for free – to wear certain clothes, turn up to events – people use you to make money. I think that’s why I tend to jump into relationships.
“Dating also becomes more difficult as you get older, because you put more pressure on yourself. When I was 20, I didn’t think about the consequences. Now I think, next time I date – and I’ve never thought about this before – will be to marry. None of this getting engaged business. He has to be my best friend and someone I can trust – not a battle of egos. I’ve had enough of it. I’m waiting for a really sweet person to come along. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll just keep waiting.”
Like most women, her common sense has been hard won. “If you don’t know what you want, it’s not going to come to you. It took me a long time to realise that. I was waiting for these men and I was like, ‘I’m wasting time doing this.’ I need to find someone interesting and funny. I need someone to make me laugh because that’s what I do, and it makes life so much easier.”
Although Monk won’t go into detail about why her latest engagement didn’t work out, she hints that her knight in shining armour was more than a little tarnished.
“The men [in LA] are clever; they listen to you and tell you everything you want to hear. It’s amazing for the first couple of months, and then, down the track, it changes to, ‘No, you’re not working any more. You’re not doing this, you’re doing that.’ And I understand, because I don’t have a regular nine-to-five job, and I run a company and make my own money, men find it threatening.”
Previous partners have also objected to Monk’s racier film scenes.“It’s a major issue. You try to talk it out, but you reach a stage where you can’t talk any more – it’s exhausting,” she explains, adding that a break from all the complications would be a relief.
“Men get in my way. When I meet someone I care about, I focus on them so much that I forget about myself.”
Another regular topic for Monk’s detractors is plastic surgery. Earlier this year she admitted she regretted going under the knife, saying, “I should have said no, but I trusted the doctor.”
Today Monk confirms she’s had Botox and lip fillers. “If I just wanted to be a trophy wife, I’d consider surgery,” she says, grinning with a hint of mischief. “I want to look as natural as possible now. I realise having work done makes you look older – and everyone’s starting to look the same, which is a problem. I’ve admitted that I had a cyst removed from my lip and had it filled – I had to; the lip was half gone. And I’ve tried Botox, but I don’t do it any more. I’d tell anyone who’s going to have it done not to do it. It doesn’t look good and men don’t find it attractive.”
And Monk isn’t banking on her looks to earn her a living. “It’s not who I am. I’ve done a lot of modelling because it pays the bills and it’s fun, but I have more to offer than the way I look. If I were doing everything off my looks, I’d be very depressed.”
It’s now 11 years since she cavorted in a fairy garden singing the number-one hit ‘Poison’ and she’ll be 32 in December. “That doesn’t bother me. These days, actresses over 45 are killing it. When I first started, if you hadn’t made it by 35, you were done. I don’t think age is such a big deal any more.”
She also hopes to have kids one day (“And when I do, I plan to raise them in Australia”) but, for now, fans of Bardot will be happy to hear she plans to record a pop song. “I don’t miss touring and all that kind of stuff, but the music industry has changed. Thanks to iTunes, you can just release singles. It’s not recorded yet – we’ve only just found the song – but it has a pop vibe.”
Although it all sounds wonderful and easy – and Monk does come across as a glass half-full kind of gal – she knows that isn’t always the case.
“I’ve had a lot of bad luck,” she says, that trademark frankness coming out again. “I recently had a stalker who wanted to kill me. That was weird. He thought he could hear me screaming in the corner of his hospital room and thought I wanted to die. So I wrote to him and told him I was fine.”
It’s a long way to the top and Monk is still on the road, but despite what others may think, she sounds genuinely happy about the way her career has gone so far.
So does she see her dreams eventually coming true? “I don’t know, because they change as you get older. I just want to be happy, and right now I love what I’m doing. I want to act and I want to produce. I’m good with people and I know what I’m doing because I’ve done it for so long.
“The only time I think about [my career] is when someone looks at me the way I look at my friends who are in big movies and points it out. Then it’s, ‘Wow, I’ve achieved at lot.’ And I did it all myself.”
