There’s always mixed emotions when a men’s magazine come calling asking for a front cover shoot.
For many women out there I can understand that the thought of posing in a bikini before a photographic crew for hours on end would be their idea of a living nightmare.
These days I try to think of it as just another acting role.
Seriously, I don’t have the thickest skin in Hollywood, nor the most tanned for that matter. However, I’ve seen the upside to flaunting one’s sexier side in an industry where shock and surprise keeps you current.
But believe me it wasn’t always that way.
When I first started out, I remember turning down a cover for FHM and hating shooting anything in bikinis because it felt like it was discriminating and not a reflection of who I really was.
I’ve always felt my sense of humor was more important than how I look in a bikini top.
Funny enough it seems the men’s magazine game begged to differ and the offers kept rolling in. Soon the anxiety went out the window.
My take on shooting for men’s magazines is that I love entertaining people and being creative, so I approach every shoot wanting to bring something fresh.
I have to admit a lot of my fans are men and it’s flattering to think they still think I rate in the looks department, as much as it is very cool when women say they relate to me and I’m down to earth.
The trick is to use your assets without becoming a stuck-up diva.
The down side of Hollywood is, of course, that you are always competing in the beauty Olympics, whether you like it or not.
Frankly if you want to appear on screen – from TV to cinema or even YouTube – your sense of humour needs to be presented in a nice package.
I never imagined putting emphasis on image or weight, but you soon realise it comes with the game.
It might surprise you to know in real life I rarely wear a bikini. Because I constantly get glammed up for work, it feels like a job, so I’m in sweats with wet hair and no makeup every time I get the chance.
I’m a comfortable kinda girl who likes her tracksuits – well, until my New Year’s resolution to try to dress up more!
Another inescapable reality is that Hollywood only takes you seriously depending on how you look on the red carpet. In fact half your career is determined by how you are seen when you’re not at work.
And that includes when you feature on the front cover of a men’s magazine.
When I do arrive at the photographic studio I decide that modeling with not many clothes, for me, is basically a lot like acting.
I always stick to having the same team around and laugh the whole time, and after a while I guess you go into a zone of work and forget that more than the six people in the room are going to see it.
Also there is something incredibly liberating about just showing your body for what it is.
I grew up extremely self-conscious and shy and it was only when you put me on a stage singing that it became a different story.
Certainly men’s magazines have also taken me out of my comfort zone and strangely for the better.
I used to go up and down like a yoyo with weight because gossip and fashion magazines focus on it so much, but even I buy those mags, so I can’t talk. But with men’s mags you don’t have to be catwalk thin or be some fashion designer’s ideal.
So posing for them now is fun as long as it’s not my sole focus.
Sure we all have those PMS days when we don’t want to be looked at.
But I just think “thank gosh for airbrushing” and I realize I’m going to have to hang up these bikinis one day, so let’s enjoy it while we can.
In all honesty, I don’t understand at all having anyone pay me to bare skin.
I’ll always be the class clown who was chubby and humor is my thing, as naff as that sounds.
Girls, I’m not going to bulls—- you and say I was “blessed with genes” and that “I eat whatever I want”.
Please. It’s so rare to be one of those women.
I totally watch what I eat, then pig out after a shoot.
It’s all good fun for now and as long as it’s still entertaining I’ll do it, but I get a better kick out of things like radio, when you can entertain and it doesn’t matter what you look like.
Well let’s hope so. Sophie Monk could be in line for a panellist spot on US talk show Chelsea Lately – alongside regulars such as comedians Sarah Colonna and Loni Love.
